toluidine

Meanings

1. Any of the three isomeric aromatic amines derived from toluene; they are used in the synthesis of certain dyes

Etymology

Coined in 1845 by James Sheridan Muspratt and August Wilhelm von Hofmann who discovered the compound in the same year. They appended -ine to nitrotoluide, an obsolete term for nitrotoluene, which they reduced to get toluidine. Further, from German Nitrotoluid, from Toluid, an obsolete term for toluyl radical, both proposed by Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1843 after tolu (Tolu balsam), which itself is from the Colombian city of Tolú, from Spanish tolúes (“name of a pre-Columbian people of the area”). By surface analysis, toluene + -idine