Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Alkaloid |
AlkaloidNoun1. Natural nitrogen-containing bases found in plants. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "alkaloid" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1887. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Biology & Biotechnology | A class of nitrogenous substances occurring in many plants and producing characteristic physiological effects; many are highly poisonous. Source: European Union. (references) |
Food & Agriculture | Basic organic substance of plant origin containing at least one nitrogen atom; important physiological action. Source: European Union. (references) |
Health | A member of a large group of chemicals that are made by plants and have nitrogen in them. Some alkaloids have been shown to work against cancer. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
An alkaloid is a nitrogenous organic molecule that has a pharmacological effect on humans and other animals. Alkaloids are found in plants (e.g., in potatoes and tomatoes), animals (e.g., in shellfish) and fungi.
Even though many alkaloids are poisonous (such as strychnine or coniine), some are used in medicine as analgesics (pain relievers) or anaesthetics. Morphine, cocaine, atropine, caffeine, quinine, theophylline, and theobromine are also members of the alkaloid family.
The following block of text modified from the 1911 encyclopedia, with some obsolete text removed, needs merging with the above
In chemistry, Alkaloid is a term originally applied to any organic base, i.e. a nitrogenous substance which forms salts with acids; now, however, it is usual to restrict the term to bases of vegetable origin and characterized by remarkable toxicological or pharmacological effects. Such bases occur almost exclusively in the dicotyledons, generally in combination with malic, citric, tartaric or similar plant-acids. They may be extracted by exhausting the plant-tissues with a dilute acid, and precipitating the bases with potash, soda, lime, or magnesia. The separation of the mixed bases so obtained is effected by repeated fractional crystallization, or by taking advantage of certain properties of the constituents.
The following classification is simple and convenient; the list of alkaloids makes no pretence at being exhaustive.
The greater number of these substances are of considerable medicinal value; this aspect is treated generally in the article Pharmacology. Reference should also be made to the articles on the individual alkaloids for further details as to their medicinal and chemical properties.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Alkaloid."
Crosswords: Alkaloid |
| English words defined with "alkaloid": Cadaveric alkaloid. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "alkaloid": Acronine, Ajmaline, Arecoline ♦ belladona, Bicuculline, Bromocriptine, Buprenorphine ♦ Camptothecin ♦ Demecolcine, Dihydro-beta-Erythroidine ♦ Harringtonines, homoharringtonine ♦ Monocrotaline, Muscarine ♦ nitrocamptothecin, Noscapine ♦ Piperidines, Prajmaline, pyrrolizidine alkaloid ♦ Swainsonine ♦ Toxiferine ♦ Vincamine, vinorelbine ♦ Yohimbine. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Alkaloid" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (alkaloid), Czech (alkaloid), Danish (alkaloid), Hungarian (alkaloid), Serbo-Croatian (alkaloid), Swedish (alkaloid). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | On high mountain rangelands in central Utah, range technician Gus Warr collects larkspur samples to measure alkaloid levels.Credit: USDA ARS News. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Bolivia | Roughly one-third of the world's cocaine is made from coca grown in Bolivia: Bolivia's coca crop is third after Colombia's and Peru's in the production of the cocaine alkaloid, and the country is third after Colombia and Peru in the production of refined cocaine hydrochloride. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Alkaloid" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 50.00% of the time. "Alkaloid" is used about 10 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 50% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 50% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 10 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "alkaloid": Cadaveric alkaloid ♦ pyrrolizidine alkaloid. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
alkaloid | 79 |
ephedrine alkaloid | 22 |
ephedra alkaloid | 13 |
belladonna alkaloid | 11 |
ergot alkaloid | 10 |
alkaloid green potato | 4 |
alkaloid extraction | 3 |
ephedrine group alkaloid | 3 |
pyrrolizidine alkaloid | 2 |
plant alkaloid | 2 |
alkaloid antifertility male | 2 |
tasmanian alkaloid | 2 |
extracting alkaloid | 2 |
chemistry of the alkaloid | 2 |
alkaloid food | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "alkaloid"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | alkaloid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | شبه قلوى. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | алкалоид. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | "物碱. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | alkaloid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | alkaloid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | alkaloïde, alkaloïde. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | alkaloidi. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | alcaloïde. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Alkaloide, Alkaloid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | αλκαλοειδέσ, αλκαλοειδές. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | alkaloid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | alcaloide. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | アルカリ土類金属 (alkali earth metal, alkalosis). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | アルカロイド . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 알카로이". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | alkaloyd. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | alkaloiday alcalóide. (various references) алкалоид. (various references) alkaloid. (various references) alcaloide. (various references) alkaloid. (various references) alkaloit, alkaloid ile ilgili. (various references) алкалоїд. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "alkaloid": alkaloidal, alkaloids. (additional references) | |
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"Alkaloid" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: alcaloid, alkalai, alkmaionid, arkanoid. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "alkaloid" (pronounced a"lkuloy'd) |
| 4 | -u l oy' d | amyloid, celluloid, mongoloid. |
| 3 | -l oy' d | unalloyed. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-d-i-k-l-l-o" | |
-1 letter: allodia, alodial. | |
-2 letters: alkali, alodia. | |
-3 letters: aldol, allod, koala. | |
-4 letters: dial, dill, diol, doll, idol, ilka, kadi, kail, kill, kilo, kola, laid, lido, load, olla. | |
-5 letters: aal, ado, aid, ail, ala, all, dak, dal, dol, ilk, ill, kid, koa, koi, lad, lid, oak, oil, oka, old. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-d-i-k-l-l-o" | |
+1 letter: alkaloids. | |
+2 letters: alkaloidal. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 6C 6B 61 6C 6F 69 64 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).- .-.. -.- .- .-.. --- .. -.. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01101100 01101011 01100001 01101100 01101111 01101001 01100100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A l k a l o i d |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 006C 006B 0061 006C 006F 0069 0064 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3578776778817570 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Photo Album | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Orthography 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
