What is the true meaning of dimerize and trimerize - neither of these words are found in any dictionary and hence, are not actually in use: scientific jargon perhaps, but not proper English. Also, if it is in proper use, in the UK, is it spelt dimerise & trimerise ending in SE rather than the US normal of ZE?
I used these words in a response recently and that may be the origin of this post. What do you mean--neither of these words are found in any dictionary and hence, are not actually in use; scientific jargon perhaps, but not proper English. Poppycock. I looked in my dictionary I have at home and dimer is listed, big as life. Dimerize is not listed but dimer is defined as formed from two identical things. AND that is exactly what it means in chemistry. It is not jargon (at least in the way I define jargon). I am no expert on linguistics BUT it's perfect English in my book. The more common terms are polymerize and polymer and they are used to characterize the formation of nylon, dacron, polybutadiene (synthetic rubber), teflon, and a host of other organic compounds that are used in daily life. Its hard to find clothes that are not advertised as a poly blend of this or that and cooking pans come with "teflon coated" blazed across the buy me signs. Poly means many so nylon, dacron, and all the other polymers consist of endless chains of smaller molecules to make huge molecules. Dimer then simply means two molecules joined and trimer means three molecules joined. Dimerization, which is not listed in my ditionary, is the process of forming a dimer; trimerization is the process of forming a trimer. A tetramer would be four such units joined. Etc. I hope this helps.