ester

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Ester,^[2][3][4] coined in 1848 by the German chemist Leopold Gmelin, professor at Heidelberg.^[5][3][2][6] It is probably a contraction of Essigäther (“acetic ether”),^[7][8][2][9] the German name for ethyl acetate,^[5] from Essig (“vinegar”) and Äther (“ether”),^{[7][3][10][4]} though Etymonline quotes Flood calling it "apparently a pure invention".^[5] Barnhart says Gmelin made it to contrast with ether.^[2] Essig is from Old High German ezzīh,^[7][10][5] from Latin acētum (“vinegar”) with a metathesis,^[5][7][10] and Äther from aethēr.^[7][10][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A compound formed from an acid and an alcohol: 1852, in H. Watts's translation of Gmelin's Hand-book of Chemistry.^[3][2][5]

Timeline

• 1848 – German Ester, coined by Gmelin.^[5]
• 1852 – English ester, in the translation of Gmelin's handbook.^[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chemistry) Any of a class of compounds formed by the reaction of an acid with an alcohol, with loss of water: Many fruit flavours come from volatile esters.^[8][10][3]

Word family

• esterification
• esterify
• diester
• esterase
• monoester
• transesterification

Related words

• ether
• acetic
• vinegar

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b 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 e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster