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