Adrenaline

How to spell adrenaline

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce adrenaline

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adrenaline mean?

1. nounA hormone released by the adrenal glands that raises heart rate and prepares the body for sudden effort or stress.

Adrenaline in a sentence

• The paramedic injected adrenaline to restart the patient's failing heart.

• A sudden rush of adrenaline left her hands shaking after the near miss on the motorway.

Where does adrenaline come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows from the adrenal glands, the small organs that sit just above the kidneys, and its parts come straight from Latin: ad meaning 'near' or 'toward', and renes meaning 'the kidneys'. So an adrenal gland is literally one that lies near the kidney, and adrenaline is the substance those glands secrete. The term was coined at the very start of the twentieth century as chemists isolated the hormone; the Japanese chemist Jokichi Takamine famously crystallised it around 1901. The trade name 'Adrenalin' was registered by the firm Parke-Davis, while the generic chemical name in many countries became 'epinephrine', a parallel coinage built from Greek roots meaning 'upon the kidney'. The everyday English word kept the spelling with a final -ine, the standard ending for many chemical and alkaloid names, which is exactly the stretch that trips writers up.

How the word is built

• ad- (near/toward)
• ren (from Latin renes: kidneys)
• -al (adjective)
• -ine (chemical substance suffix)