Long ago, when my chemical world was new, I had a wise teacher by the name of David Crichton. He was a stickler for proper terminology and one thing he passed along was the proper chemical suffixes. I can’t find this list elsewhere so I’m posting it here for the Good of The Order.
Common Suffixes Used with Nouns in Chemical Terminology
-ance, -ence: denotes a state, a condition, a quality of being
Example: valence, conductance, resistance, absorbance
-ant, -ent: denotes a thing acting as an agent
Example: precipitant, titrant, diluent, dissectant, eluent
-ate: denotes nouns made from participles (verb forms), something resulting from the action of
the verb stem
Example: precipitate, distillate, condensate, decantate, eluate, absorbate
-gram: denotes something drawn or written
Example: polarogram, spectrogram, chromatogram
-meter: denotes an instrument for measuring some specified thing
Example: thermometer, spectrometer, spectrophotometer, photometer, potentiometer
-or: denotes an agent or doer
Example: desiccator, monochromator
-tion, -sion: denotes action, a process
Example: precipitation, distillation, condensation, dissociation, decantation, elution,
adsorption
-ty, -cy: denotes a quality, a state, a condition
Example: density, conductivity, resistivity, absorptivity, accuracy
-graph: denotes an instrument for making records
Example: polarograph, spectrograph, chromatograph
Thanks for this. I’ve never even wondered about these suffixes, but this is a truly interesting list.
I feel like a real Smarty Pants now! 🙂
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