Propane

How to spell propane

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce propane

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does propane mean?

1. nounA flammable hydrocarbon gas, usually stored under pressure as a liquid and burned as fuel for heating and cooking.

Propane in a sentence

• The caravan runs its stove and heater on bottled propane.

• He swapped the empty cylinder for a full tank of propane at the garage.

Where does propane come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Propane is a coined chemical name from the nineteenth century, assembled from scientific roots rather than borrowed whole from another language. The first part, prop-, comes from propionic acid, whose own name was built from the Greek protos, meaning 'first', and pion, meaning 'fat', because chemists regarded it as the smallest of the true fatty acids. The ending -ane is the systematic suffix used for saturated hydrocarbons, the family known as alkanes, the same ending you see in methane, ethane and butane. The word was put together by chemists in the 1860s and 1870s as they organised these gases into a tidy naming system, so the spelling reflects that orderly scheme rather than any older everyday word. For a speller the useful clue is that it is simply prop plus the standard -ane ending, sharing its tail with butane and methane.

How the word is built

• prop- (from propionic acid, the three-carbon chain)
• -ane (chemical suffix marking a saturated hydrocarbon, an alkane)