fatty acid

English

Pronunciation

  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

fatty acid (plural fatty acids)

  1. (organic chemistry, biochemistry) Any of a class of aliphatic carboxylic acids, of general formula CnH2n+1COOH, that occur combined with glycerol as animal or vegetable oils and fats. Only those with an even number of carbon atoms are normally found in natural fats.

Usage notes

  • The above general formula applies to the saturated fatty acids. Remove 2 hydrogen atoms for an unsaturated fatty acid, and 2 hydrogen atoms for every double bond in a polyunsaturated fatty acid.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

References

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.