Substrates

How to spell substrates

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce substrates

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does substrates mean?

1. nounThe underlying layers, surfaces, or base materials on which something grows, is deposited, or is built.
2. nounThe molecules that enzymes act upon in a biochemical reaction.

Substrates in a sentence

• The gardener tested several substrates before deciding which compost held moisture best.

• Each enzyme binds only to specific substrates that fit its active site.

• Coral larvae need clean, hard substrates to settle on and develop.

• The lab measured how quickly the catalyst converted its substrates into products.

Where does substrates come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reaches back to the Latin verb sternere, meaning 'to spread out' or 'to lay down', whose past participle gave stratum, literally 'something spread out' and so 'a layer'. Adding the prefix sub-, meaning 'under' or 'beneath', produced substratum, the underlying layer or foundation on which something rests. Scientists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries adopted the form 'substrate' for the surface or material that supports an organism, a coating, or a chemical reaction, and the plural 'substrates' simply follows the regular English pattern. The same Latin stratum still surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'stratum', 'stratosphere', and 'street', which was originally a 'paved, laid-down way'. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: writers must remember the 'sub' opening and the 'strat' core rather than smoothing it into a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• sub- (under, beneath)
• strat (from Latin stratum: a layer, something spread)
• -es (plural)