organic compound

English

Etymology

Not only are organic compounds essential to living organisms, but the common belief until the 19th century was that only living organisms could produce them, whence the name. When it was shown in the early 1800s that they could also be produced in the laboratory, the old name was kept.

Noun

organic compound (plural organic compounds)

1. (organic chemistry) Any compound containing carbon atoms covalently bound to other atoms.

   Meteorites contain a wide range of organic compounds.

Usage notes

By convention they do not include the carbides, carbonates, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide; carbon disulphide is debatable.

Antonyms

• inorganic compound

Hyponyms

• volatile organic compound

Translations

carbon containing covalent compound

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 有機化合物／有机化合物 (jau⁵ gei¹ faa³ hap⁶ mat⁶)

  Mandarin: 有機化合物／有机化合物 (zh) (yǒujī huàhéwù)

• Czech: organická sloučenina f
• Danish: organisk forbindelse
• Dutch: organische verbinding f
• Finnish: orgaaninen yhdiste (fi)
• French: composé organique (fr) m
• Galician: composto orgánico m
• German: organische Verbindung f
• Greek: οργανική ένωση (el) f (organikí énosi)
• Icelandic: lífrænt efnasamband n
• Irish: comhdhúil orgánach f
• Italian: composto organico (it)
• Japanese: 有機化合物 (ja) (ゆうきかごうぶつ, yūki kagōbutsu)
• Korean: please add this translation if you can
• Malay: sebatian organik
• Malayalam: കാർബണിക സംയുക്തം (kāṟbaṇika saṁyuktaṁ)
• Manx: co-vunstoo orgaanagh
• Maori: matūwaro
• Portuguese: composto orgânico m
• Romanian: compus organic m
• Russian: органи́ческое соедине́ние (ru) n (organíčeskoje sojedinénije), органи́ческое вещество́ (ru) n (organíčeskoje veščestvó)
• Spanish: compuesto orgánico
• Swedish: organisk förening c
• Tagalog: haying balangkap
• Turkish: organik bileşik (tr)
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Welsh: cyfansoddyn organig m