Acetate

How to spell acetate

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce acetate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acetate mean?

1. nounA salt or ester of acetic acid.
2. nounA synthetic material made from cellulose acetate, used for fabric, film and transparent sheets.

Acetate in a sentence

• The lab technician measured a small amount of sodium acetate for the experiment.

• She printed the diagram onto a sheet of clear acetate for the projector.

• The solution turned cloudy once the acetate began to react.

• The lining of the jacket was made from soft acetate rather than silk.

Where does acetate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word acetate traces back to the Latin acetum, which simply meant 'vinegar', and which was itself related to the verb acere, 'to be sour'. In the language of chemistry the suffix -ate was attached to the names of acids to label the salts and esters formed from them, so acetate literally names a compound derived from acetic acid, the sour substance that gives vinegar its bite. The term entered scientific English in the late eighteenth century as modern chemical naming was being systematised, and it later broadened from a purely laboratory word into the everyday name for a family of materials. Cellulose acetate, developed in the early twentieth century, gave us acetate film, acetate fabric and the clear acetate sheets used for overlays and printing. The same vinegar root survives in words such as acetic and acid, and remembering that 'acet' begins the chemical family helps fix the single c and the unstressed middle vowel that writers often fumble.

How the word is built

• acet- (from Latin acetum: vinegar)
• -ate (suffix marking a salt or ester of an acid)