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Michael Smith

Meaning of the word 'croton'

Andre Jackson  Follow

As with many chemical compounds (see the large class of terpenes, for instance) "croton" derivatives take their name from the natural source of their "father" compound. They are a family descending from crotonic acid, which was found in the oil from the seeds of the Croton plant.

"Croton" compounds are derivatives of the father compound "crotonic acid" (2-butenoic acid), so you can guess the names of the derived compounds by the logical chemical modifications of such compounds. For instance, as you might guess, crotyl alcohol is But-2-enol, from the reduction of crotonic acid; crotonylene's structure can be imagined with an analogy between acetic acid and acetylene, and so on.

I don't think that nowadays new names for the derivatives could be accepted, but for historical reasons many derivatives have these funny names.

And, knowing the stucture of the father compound, it's easy to imagine the structure of the derived ones.

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