enzyme

Term: enzyme

Origin: An Greek εν / en(=in ) + ζύμη/ zyme (=leaven, ferment) meaning “in yeast” .

Coined: In 1877 by German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne (1837–1900). Kuhne used the term “enzym” instead of ‘diastase’ (Beneden, 1876) to describe the "unorganized ferment from yeast and other organisms." Kühne was the first who distinquished enzymes from mixro-organisms that produce them. The debate in his time was whether the catalytic activity observed in these "ferments" could exist independently of living cells. 1876. It is worth noting that the word enzyme was different from word  ferment because  enzyme was to denote something “in yeast”  rather than being an life-bound part of it.

Definition:

Proteins that are produced by living organisms in order to catalyze  (accelerating the rate) chemical reactions.

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Wilhelm Kühne in the late 1870s, coined the term rhodopsin for the substance, also known as visual purple, first discovered in the retinal rods by Franz Boll in 1876 and the term myosin in 1863.