Other forms: vitamins
A vitamin is one of the tiny helpers in fruit and vegetables your body must have. Vitamin C, take vitamins, a vitamin deficiency.
The defining feature is that the body cannot make it, so it has to come from food — which is why vitamin D is a borderline case, since skin makes it from sunlight. The name was coined in 1912 as vitamine, a vital amine, and the e was dropped when it turned out most are not amines.
1nounvitaminA substance needed in small amounts that the body cannot make.
“Oranges are a good source of vitamin C.”
vitamin is a nutrient.
Coined in 1912 as vitamine, from Latin vita, life, plus amine. The e was dropped when most proved not to be amines.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷeyh₃-
Latin
vīta — life
English, today
vitamin
First use appears c. 1920, originally vitamine (1912), from Latin vīta (“life”) (see vital) + amine (see amino acid). Vitamine coined by Polish biochemist Casimir Funk after the initial discovery of aberic acid (thiamine), when it was thought that all such nutrients would be amines. The term had become ubiquitous by the time it was discovered that vitamin C, among others, had no amine component. In 1920, British biochemist Jack Drummond proposed that the final -e be dropped to deemphasize the amine reference. The ending -in was acceptable because it was used for natural substances of undefined composition. Drummond also introduced the lettering system of nomenclature (Vitamin A, B, C, etc.) at this same time.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA