Polymer

How to spell polymer

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce polymer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does polymer mean?

1. nounA substance made of very large molecules built from many repeated smaller units, such as plastic, nylon, or rubber.

Polymer in a sentence

• The bottle is moulded from a lightweight polymer that resists heat.

• The lab tested how the new polymer behaves under pressure.

Where does polymer come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Polymer comes from the Greek elements polus, meaning 'many', and meros, meaning 'a part' or 'a share', so the word literally describes something 'made of many parts'. The German chemist who coined the term, building on the Greek root, used it for a substance whose molecules are long chains formed by linking many identical small units together. The same poly- prefix appears in everyday words like 'polygon' (many angles) and 'polyglot' (many tongues), while the -mer element survives in 'monomer' (one part), the single building block that joins up to make a polymer. The word entered scientific English in the nineteenth century as chemists began to understand these large repeating molecules. Because the spelling ends in the unstressed '-mer' rather than the more familiar '-mar' or '-mor', that final vowel is the main trap; remembering 'meros', a part, keeps the 'e' in place.

How the word is built

• poly- (many)
• -mer (part, from Greek meros: a part or share)