Definitions

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

  • noun Either of a pair of crystals, molecules, or compounds that are mirror images of each other but are not identical, and that rotate the plane of polarized light equally, but in opposite directions.

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

  • noun (Chem.) either of a pair of optical isomers of a chemical substance whose molecules are mirror images of each other, i. e., are related to each other as a right-handed to a left-handed glove; -- meaningful only for structures which have internal asymmetry.

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

  • noun chemistry One of a pair of stereoisomers that is the mirror image of the other, but may not be superimposed on this other stereoisomer. Almost always, a pair of enantiomers contain at least one chiral center, and a sample of either enantiomer will be optically active.

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

  • noun either one of a pair of compounds (crystals or molecules) that are mirror images on each other but are not identical

Etymologies

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

[Greek enantios, opposite; see ant- in Indo-European roots + –mer, isomer.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

enantio- + -mer

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