methyl

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

• adjective Relating to or being the simplest hydrocarbon unit, CH₃, that can occur as a substituent in an organic compound or as an ion or radical.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The hypothetical radical (CH₃) of woodspirit and its derivatives. It is analogous to ethyl in its chemical relations.

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

• noun (Chem.) A univalent hydrocarbon radical, CH3-, not existing alone but regarded as an essential residue of methane, and appearing as a component part of many derivatives
• noun (Chem.) a light, volatile, inflammable liquid, CH3.OH, obtained by the distillation of wood, and hence called wood alcohol or wood spirit; tecnically referred to as methanol; -- called also methol, carbinol, etc.
• noun (Chem.) a colorless, inflammable, alkaline gas, CH3.NH2, having an ammoniacal, fishy odor. It is produced artificially, and also occurs naturally in herring brine and other fishy products. It is regarded as ammonia in which a third of its hydrogen is replaced by methyl, and is a type of the class of substituted ammonias.
• noun (Chem.) a light, volatile ether CH3.O.CH3, obtained by the etherification of methyl alcohol; -- called also methyl oxide or dimethyl ether.
• noun (Chem.) See under Green, n.
• noun (Chem.) See Helianthin.
• noun (Chem.) an artificial dye, consisting of certain methyl halogen derivatives of rosaniline.

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

• noun organic chemistry The univalent hydrocarbon radical, CH3, formally derived from methane by the loss of a hydrogen atom.

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

• noun the univalent radical CH3- derived from methane