chiral

[kahy-ruhl]

adjective

Chemistry.

1. (of a molecule) not superimposable on its mirror image.

Other Word Forms

• chirality noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of chiral¹

1894; chir- < Greek cheír hand + -al ¹; coined by Lord Kelvin

Example Sentences

The mirror protease only works on mirror peptides, which means, by the law of mirror-image symmetry that applies to chiral molecules, that regular proteases would likewise be unable to cut down mirror-image peptides.

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Your hands are chiral body parts, because when placed over one another, they line up perfectly yet are shaped reflectively.

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Effectively, and functionally, a molecule and its chiral mirror image are two different molecules.

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A particular advantage of the new technique is that it also works with chiral antiferromagnetic materials.

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"Our findings are significant for the thermoelectric imaging of spintronic components. We have already demonstrated this with chiral antiferromagnets," says Woltersdorf.

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