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acyl

noun

Simple meaning

Any group or radical of the form RCO- where R is an organic group.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhsuhl
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

əsəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. organic chemistry

    Any group or radical of the form RCO- where R is an organic group

    “An example of the acyl group is the acetyl group.”

  2. organic chemistry

    Any of class of organic radicals, RCO-, formed by the removal of a hydroxyl group from a carboxylic acid.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: Any group or radical of the form RCO- where R is an organic group

An 'acyl' group is a fundamental chemical functional group in organic chemistry. This term is highly specific to scientific and academic chemistry discussions, and won't appear in everyday conversation.

Heard in a sentence
“An example of the acyl group is the acetyl group.”
Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where you'll really hear it

  • Chemistry Textbook

    “An acyl halide reacts readily with nucleophiles.”

  • Research Lab

    “We need to synthesize a compound containing an acyl moiety.”

Where it naturally appears

  • Science
  • Academic writing
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use acyl

  • “An example of the acyl group is the acetyl group.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

acyl groupacyl chloridefatty acylchain acylamino acylacyl carrieracyl transferaseacyl transfer

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • acyl anhydridesnounCompound term

    Organic compounds that react with water to form an acid.

  • acyl groupnounCompound term

    Any group or radical of the form RCO- where R is an organic group.

  • acyl halidenounCompound term

    Organic compounds containing the group -COX where X is a halogen atom.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.