Carbohydrate

How to spell carbohydrate

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce carbohydrate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does carbohydrate mean?

1. nounA food substance such as sugar or starch that the body breaks down for energy.

Carbohydrate in a sentence

• Bread and pasta are high in carbohydrate content.

• The nutrition label lists the carbohydrate per serving.

Where does carbohydrate come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is a scientific compound coined in the middle of the nineteenth century, stitched together from 'carbon' and 'hydrate'. The first part traces back to the Latin carbo, meaning 'coal' or 'charcoal', while the second part rests on the Greek hydor, meaning 'water'. Chemists chose the name because these molecules contain hydrogen and oxygen in the same two-to-one ratio found in water, so they looked, on paper, like carbon combined with water. The word entered English usage around the 1860s as the chemistry of sugars and starches was being worked out. The spelling trap lives in that buried 'o' of 'carbo' and the 'hydr' from the Greek for water, so remembering that it literally means 'watered carbon' helps fix the middle of the word.

How the word is built

• carbo- (carbon)
• hydr- (water, from Greek hydor)
• -ate (chemical compound suffix)