Other forms: hormones
A hormone is a chemical your body makes in one place and sends through the blood to give orders somewhere else. Adrenaline before a race, insulin after a meal, the flood of hormones that turns a child into a teenager.
You meet the named ones long before you meet the word: insulin, adrenaline, testosterone, oestrogen, cortisol, melatonin. The adjective is hormonal, as in hormonal changes or a hormonal imbalance, and hormone replacement therapy is shortened to HRT. Plants have hormones too, the ones telling a shoot to lean towards the light. In everyday talk "it's just his hormones" blames a mood on the body, a dismissive use worth recognising rather than copying. The naming pattern is steady: growth hormone, thyroid hormone, stress hormone, with the job at the front and hormone at the end.
1nounhormoneA chemical made in one part of the body and carried in the blood to change how other parts work.
“Insulin is the hormone that lets your cells take in sugar.”
2nounplural(in the plural, informal) hormones treated as the reason for someone's moods or desires.
“He put the whole argument down to hormones and said nothing more.”
hormone is a chemical messenger.
The word was built from Ancient Greek hormon, the present participle of hormao, to set in motion or urge on. Behind that sits horme, an onrush or an impulse to do something. A hormone is the body's urging-on, sent by post through the blood.
Ancient Greek
ὁρμάω
English, today
hormone
Built from
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ὁρμάω. Ancient Greek ὁρμῶν, present participle of ὁρμάω (“to set in motion, to urge on”), from ὁρμή (“rapid motion forwards, onrush, onset, assault, impulse to do a thing, effort”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA