Valproates

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A class of medications primarily used to treat seizure disorders and bipolar disorder while also serving as mood stabilizers and preventing migraines
2. Therapeutic agents that include various salts of valproic acid, commonly prescribed to manage epilepsy and regulate mood swings in bipolar patients
3. Compounds derived from valproic acid, effective in treating conditions like epilepsy, mood disorders, and sometimes used to prevent migraine headaches

Etymology: "Valproates" is the plural of "valproate," so it names a class of compounds rather than a single substance. The base is valproic acid, and the "-ate" ending is the standard chemical suffix marking a salt or ester of an acid, so a valproate is the salt or ester formed from that acid. The name thus records the chemistry directly: the acid's name plus the suffix that tells chemists what kind of compound it is. Valproic acid itself takes its name from its chemical structure, a short branched carboxylic acid, rather than from a person or an event. Its pharmaceutical forms, such as sodium valproate, are the compounds that gave the plural its everyday use in medicine, where the term covers several related salts and esters used to treat epilepsy and mood disorders.