Catalytic

How to spell catalytic

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce catalytic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does catalytic mean?

1. adjectiveCausing or relating to catalysis, or acting to trigger and accelerate a change.

Catalytic in a sentence

• The failing emissions test traced back to a worn catalytic converter.

• The new platinum coating gives the reactor a strong catalytic effect.

Where does catalytic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek katalysis, meaning a 'dissolution' or 'breaking down', which was built from kata, meaning 'down' or 'completely', and lyein, the verb 'to loosen' or 'to release'. The literal idea was therefore of something being loosened apart, and the same lyein root survives in modern terms like 'analysis' and 'paralysis'. The Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius adapted the term in the 1830s to name the way certain substances speed up a chemical reaction without being consumed, giving us 'catalysis' and its adjective 'catalytic'. From there the meaning broadened into everyday speech, where a 'catalytic' event or person is one that triggers rapid change in others. The tricky part of the spelling is the unstressed middle: the 'a' in cat-a-lytic is an easily dropped schwa, and the 'y' rather than an 'i' marks its Greek lysis ancestry.

How the word is built

• cata- (down, completely)
• lyt (loosen, from Greek lysis: a loosening)
• -ic (adjective suffix)