Standard Lemma guide

phenyl

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈfiː.naɪl/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈfɛn.l̩/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /ˈfɛn.l̩/
  • General-American: /ˈfi.nl̩/
  • South-Asia: /phɪˈnajl/
  • rhymes with -iːnaɪl
  • rhymes with -ɛnəl
  • rhymes with -iːnəl

1

noun

Meaning 1

A univalent hydrocarbon radical, C6H5 (benzene minus one hydrogen atom), and the basis of an immense number of aromatic derivatives.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: chemistry, natural-sciences, organic-chemistry, physical-sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bheh2-der. Proto-Hellenic *pháňňō Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō)der. French phéno- Proto-Indo-European *swel-der.? Ancient Greek ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē)der. French -yle French phénylebor. English phenyl Borrowed from French phényle, derived from the root of Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō, “to shine”) plus ὕλη (húlē, “wood; material, substance”). Equivalent to phen- + -yl.

Across languages

Translations

13 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: фенил (fenil) — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Catalan: fenil — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Chinese Cantonese: 苯基 (bun2 gei1) — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Chinese Mandarin: 苯基 (běnjī) — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Czech: fenyl — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Finnish: fenyyli — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Finnish: fenyyliryhmä — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Italian: fenile — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Japanese: フェニル基 (feniru-ki) — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Korean: 페닐기 (penilgi) — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Polish: fenyl — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Spanish: fenilo — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)
  • Swedish: fenyl — univalent hydrocarbon radical (C6H5)