Methyl Group - Etymology

Etymology

French chemists Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Eugene Peligot, after determining methanol's chemical structure, introduced "methylene" from the Greek methy = "wine" + hȳlē = "wood" (patch of trees) with the intention of highlighting its origins, "alcohol made from wood (substance)", but with Greek language errors: the Greek for "wood (substance)" is xylo-. The term "methyl" was derived in about 1840 by back-formation from "methylene", and was then applied to describe "methyl alcohol".

Methyl is the IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry term for an alkane (or alkyl) molecule, using the prefix "meth-" to indicate the presence of a single carbon.

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