Talk:-an

Etymology of chemical usage

It looks as though the chemical use started with furan (where it was an instance of the ordinary use, just in a chemical context), then was extended to pyran because it's a similar molecule, and finally was applied to polysaccharides because their closed rings are in many cases described as derivatives of those molecules. But I'm just synthesizing stuff: I haven't found a reliable source that traces the etymological connection. Hopefully someone else can find one, and add it to the page. --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 08:54, 15 February 2026 (UTC)