Monosaccharide

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Monosaccharide \Mon`o*sac"cha*ride\, n. Also -rid \-rid\ .
     [Mono- + saccharide.] (Chem.)
     A simple sugar; any of a number of sugars (including the
     trioses, tetroses, pentoses, hexoses, etc.), not decomposable
     into simpler sugars by hydrolysis. Specif., as used by some,
     a hexose. The monosaccharides are all open-chain compounds


     containing hydroxyl groups and either an aldehyde group or a
     ketone group.
     [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  monosaccharide
       n : a sugar (like sucrose or fructose) that does not hydrolyse
           to give other sugars; the simplest group of carbohydrates
           [syn: {monosaccharose}, {simple sugar}]