Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An organic group having the general formula RCO-, derived from an organic acid.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name introduced by Liebermann to designate an acid radical such as acetyl, C2H3O.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Org. Chem.) An acid radical, as acetyl, malonyl, or benzoyl. An acyl radical can be depicted as R-CO-, where -CO- is the carbonyl group, and R is the group that characterizes the acyl moiety.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun organic chemistry Any of class of organic radicals, RCO-, formed by the removal of a hydroxyl group from a carboxylic acid.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any group or radical of the form RCO- where R is an organic group

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[ac(id) + –yl.]

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Examples

  • The preparation of pentagalloyl glucose has proved this compound to be nearly identical with tannin obtained from galls (_tannin_); a few other natural tannins belong to this type which Fischer terms acyl compounds of sugar with hydroxybenzoic acids.

    Synthetic Tannins Georg Grasser

  • To communicate with its brethren, it uses a molecule called acyl-homoserine lactone, or AHL.

    Deep Inside Bacteria, a Germ of Human Personality 2009

  • The tranport of these fat building blocks is carried out by a protein called acyl carrier protein (ACP), and once again, vitamin B5 is required for this protein to function.

    The World's Healthiest Foods 2010

  • Upon completion and termination of the experiment the radiolabelled acyl derivates are extracted using organic solvents.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Alistair K. Brown et al. 2009

  • - Create an icon in your menu to run the script and make it possible to start it from the terminal by typing "acyl".

    GNOME-Look.org Content 2010

  • - Create an icon in your menu to run the script and make it possible to start it from the terminal by typing "acyl".

    GNOME-Look.org Content 2009

  • Quorum sensing (via signals such as acyl-homoserine lactones) to act cooperatively. this would be group selection I'd say.

    Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • You are suggesting that small RNA would assume the function performed by protein amino acyl synthetases and if we presume all the foregoing what leads you to think this mixture would evolve to produce a cell?

    Are Stereochemical Explanations Causally Sufficient? 2010

  • Yeah, a gradual, step by step development of DNA codons, mRNA, varieties of tRNA and amino acyl tRNA synthetases, and all that on route to a genetic code - now that's something to stick in your weed pipe.

    Chunkdz Comes Out Smokin 2008

  • The acyl derivatives of glutathione also provide protection to the cell plasma membrane, the outer fatty portion of the cell.

    Forever Young M.D. Nicholas Perricone 2010

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