Word.ws English Dictionary

bilirubin

/bɪlɪˈɹuːbɪn/

bilirubin noun: a bile pigment that is a product of the breakdown of the heme portion of hemoglobin (which occurs within macrophages as they digest red blood cells), and which is responsible for the yellowish color seen in bruises. Extremely high levels of bilirubin may cause jaundice.

Noun

bilirubin (countable and uncountable, plural bilirubins)

  1. A bile pigment that is a product of the breakdown of the heme portion of hemoglobin (which occurs within macrophages as they digest red blood cells), and which is responsible for the yellowish color seen in bruises. Extremely high levels of bilirubin may cause jaundice.
    • The doctors said this was very common, just her new-born liver catching up with the rest of her — the build-up of bilirubin in her blood. The substance red blood cells produce when broken down.2022, Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, Picador, page 339

bilirubin meaning in Tamil

bilirubin in Tamil

bile pigment
பிலிரூபின் pilirūpiṉ

Forms of bilirubin

pluralbilirubins

Origin of bilirubin

From international scientific vocabulary, from German Bilirubin. By surface analysis, bili- + rub- + -in. The German word was naturalized into other languages as international scientific vocabulary (e.g., bilirubin, bilirubine, bilirubina).

Words formed from bilirubin

Questions about bilirubin

What does bilirubin mean?
Bilirubin means a bile pigment that is a product of the breakdown of the heme portion of hemoglobin (which occurs within macrophages as they digest red blood cells), and which is responsible for the yellowish color seen in bruises. Extremely high levels of bilirubin may cause jaundice.
What is bilirubin in Tamil?
Bilirubin in Tamil is பிலிரூபின் (pilirūpiṉ). See Bilirubin meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is bilirubin?
Bilirubin is a noun.
How do you pronounce bilirubin?
Bilirubin is pronounced /bɪlɪˈɹuːbɪn/.
What is the plural of bilirubin?
The plural of bilirubin is bilirubins.

Words near bilirubin in the dictionary

  1. biliprasin
  2. biliprotein
  3. biliproteins
  4. bilipschitz
  5. Biliran
  6. bilirubin
  7. bilirubinaemia
  8. bilirubinaemic
  9. bilirubinate
  10. bilirubinates
  11. bilirubinemia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bilirubin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bilirubin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bilirubin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.