pentose

American

[pen-tohs] / ˈpɛn toʊs /

noun

Chemistry.

a monosaccharide containing five atoms of carbon, as xylose, C 5 H 1 0 O 5 , or produced from pentosans by hydrolysis.

pentose British

/ ˈpɛntəʊs /

noun

any monosaccharide containing five atoms of carbon per molecule: occur mainly in plants and the nucleic acids

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

pentose Scientific

/ pĕn′tōs′ /

Any of a class of simple sugars (monosaccharides) having five carbon atoms per molecule. Ribose and deoxyribose are pentoses.

Etymology

Origin of pentose

First recorded in 1890; from German see pent-, -ose ²

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Each nucleotide is made up of a pentose sugar, a nitrogenous base, and a phosphate group.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

Pen, pentose; Hex, hexose; HexA, corresponding sugar acid. bPairs of saponins with the same chemical formula but different retention times.

From Nature • Feb. 7, 2017

The remaining monosaccharides are the two pentose sugars, each of which contains five atoms of carbon.

From Textbooks • Jun. 19, 2013

From the solution the author isolated crystalline galactose, but failed to isolate a pentose.

From Researches on Cellulose 1895-1900 by Cross, C. F.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023