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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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eth-

A two-carbon chain of atoms.

[English ether (Greek aithēr, upper air, because the ether was believed to occupy all space beyond the sphere of the moon).]

This form is used to represent the ethyl radical, a chain of two carbon atoms (ether is the common name for diethyl ether, which contains two such chains separated by an oxygen atom); this appears in a few names of organic compounds, such as ethene, ethyne, ethambutol (a synthetic compound used to treat tuberculosis), and ethacrynic acid, a powerful diuretic drug. See also ethoxy-.

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