phycobilin
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of a group of bilins (pigments derived from porphyrins) found in some photosynthetic algae; they are open-chain tetrapyrroles related to mammalian bile pigments.
Etymology
From international scientific vocabulary, reflecting New Latin roots/stems referring to plants and bile. By surface analysis, phyco- + bilin = phyco- + bili- + -in, although according to American Heritage Dictionary, bilin was back-formed from phycobilin (as opposed to phycobilin being derived from bilin as surface analysis suggests).