Metabolic

How to spell metabolic

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce metabolic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does metabolic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to metabolism, the chemical processes by which the body converts food into energy and maintains itself.

Metabolic in a sentence

• A faster metabolic rate means the body burns energy more quickly.

• The doctor ordered blood tests to check for any metabolic disorder.

Where does metabolic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek metabole, meaning 'change' or 'transformation', which was itself formed from metaballein, 'to throw beyond' or 'to alter'. That verb joins meta-, a prefix meaning 'change' or 'beyond', with ballein, the verb 'to throw', the same root that lies behind words such as 'ballistic' and even 'parable'. Greek physicians and later naturalists used the idea of throwing-around to describe the body turning one substance into another, and the related noun 'metabolism' came into scientific English in the nineteenth century to name the chemical reactions that keep living things alive. The adjective 'metabolic' followed naturally, built with the familiar Latin-derived ending -ic to mean 'relating to those bodily chemical processes'. The spelling stays close to its Greek skeleton, so remembering the meta- prefix and the single l before -ic helps fix the form.

How the word is built

• meta- (change, beyond)
• bol (from Greek ballein: to throw)
• -ic (adjective suffix)