chlorophyll

Etymology

It is borrowed from French chlorophylle,^[2][3][4][5] which Etymonline and Barnhart print as chlorophyle and Etymonline dates to 1818.^[6][7] The French word was coined by the chemists Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou^[6][5] from Ancient Greek χλωρός (khlōrós, “pale green, greenish-yellow”) and φύλλον (phúllon, “leaf”),^[2][6][8][9] the first part through chloro-.^[6][4][5] Etymonline traces the Greek words to Proto-Indo-European *ghel- (“to shine”) and Proto-Indo-European *bhel- (“to thrive, bloom”).^[6] The second part is the same as in xanthophyll.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The green colouring matter of leaves and other green parts of plants: 1819, in Children's Essay on Chemical Analysis.^[2][6][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first meaning, the green matter of plants,^[2][10] but chemistry later showed that it is not one substance: dictionaries now define it as a group of green pigments containing magnesium that absorb light for photosynthesis,^[4][11][9] found in plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria, the most common form being chlorophyll a.^[12][11] It is also used to colour food and medicines.^[12] The spelling chlorophyl is a less common variant, which Collins labels American.^[3][12][7]

Timeline

• 1819 – the green colouring matter of leaves and other green parts of plants.^[2][7][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of a group of green pigments containing magnesium, found in the chloroplasts of plants and in algae and some bacteria, that absorb light energy for photosynthesis.^{[11][4][12][3]}
2. Such a pigment used as a colouring agent in food or medicines.^[12]

Word family

• chlorophyllous
• chlorophylloid
• achlorophyllous
• bacteriochlorophyll
• chlorophyllase

Related words

• chloro-
• chlorine
• chloroplast
• xanthophyll
• phyllo-

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins