Etymology

penamecillin

P3E1N1A1M3E1C3I1L1L1I1N1

Today it means: An acetoxymethyl ester of benzylpenicillin; a prodrug that is processed to benzylpenicillin by esterases. Full definition →

English penicillin ← Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- ← Latin ammoniacus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*pes-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*pes-ni-s
  3. Proto-Italic*peznis
  4. Latinpēnis
  5. Latinpēniculus
  6. Latinpēnicillum
  7. Englishpenicillin
  8. Latinlac
  9. Englishlacto-
  10. GermanKeton
  11. Englishketone
  12. Englishlac(tone)
  13. Egyptianjmn
  14. Ancient GreekᾸ̓́μμων (Ắmmōn)
  15. LatinAmmōn
  16. Latinammoniacus
  17. Englishammonia
  18. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁-
  19. Englisham(ide)
  20. Englishlactam
  21. Englishpenam
  22. Englishpenicillin
  23. English todaypenamecillin

From (redundant) penam + -cillin (“6-aminopenicillanic acid derivative”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.