astaxanthin

History and Etymology for astaxanthin

borrowed from German, from Astacin, an oxidation product of astaxanthin (from New Latin Astacus, genus including Astacus gammarus, the European lobster—now Homarus gammarus— + German -in -in entry 1) + Xanthin "carotenoid pigment," from Greek xanthós "yellow" + German -in -in entry 1; Astacus going back to Latin, "lobster or crayfish," borrowed from Greek astakós, ostakós, of uncertain origin — more at xantho-

Note: The name Astacin was introduced by the German chemist Richard Kuhn (1900-67) and the Austrian-born French chemist Edgar Lederer (1908-88) in "Über die Farbstoffe des Hummers (Astacus gammarus L.) und ihre Stammsubstanz, das Astacin," Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, 66. Jahrgang, Nr. 4 (April 5, 1933), pp. 488-95. Greek astakós/ostakós has been traced to a hypothetical Indo-European derivative *h₂osth₁-n̥-ko- from the base *h₂ost- "bone" (see osseous), supposedly comparable to Sanskrit an-ástha-ka- "without bones." The variant astakós is explained as either vowel assimilation or the outcome of an ablaut variant *h₂est- (allegedly seen also in astrágalos "neck vertebra, ankle bone"; see astragalus). Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010), who reconstructs the "bone" base as *h₃esth₁-, objects that the formation *h₃esth₁-n̥-ko- is unparalleled in Greek, and that the a/o fluctuation (not to mention the semantic field) is indicative of substratal origin.