organic compound

Meaning

Noun

• Any compound containing carbon atoms covalently bound to other atoms.

Related

Opposite words

• inorganic compound

Origin

• Not only are organic compounds essential to living organisms, but the common belief until the 19th century was furthermore that only living organisms could produce them, whence the name. When it was shown in the early 1800s that they could also be produced in the laboratory, the old name was kept.