Word.ws English Dictionary

mercapto

mercapto noun: the univalent radical -SH.

Noun

mercapto (uncountable)

  1. (especially, in-compounds) The univalent radical -SH
    • The postulated mechanism for the reaction of coumarin 4 as an antioxidant, as indicated in Fig 3, relies on the mercapto hydrogen atom (bold), which is under the influence of resonance and inductive effects.2015 July 6, “Hydrogen Peroxide Scavenging Activity of Novel Coumarins Synthesized Using Different Approaches”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI

Origin of mercapto

From mercaptan, from Latin mercurius captans (“mercury capturing”).

Words formed from mercapto

Phrases with mercapto

Questions about mercapto

What does mercapto mean?
Mercapto means the univalent radical -SH.
What part of speech is mercapto?
Mercapto is a noun.

Words near mercapto in the dictionary

  1. mercaptamine
  2. mercaptan
  3. mercaptans
  4. mercaptide
  5. mercaptides
  6. mercapto
  7. mercapto protease
  8. mercapto proteases
  9. mercapto-
  10. mercaptoacetamide
  11. mercaptoacetate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mercapto (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: “mercapto.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mercapto. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.