vitamin

Pluralvitamins

Formsvitamins, vitamining, vitamined

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Any of a group of organic compounds the body needs in small amounts for healthy growth, metabolism, and normal function, found in foods or made synthetically.

   Each vitamin plays a distinct role in keeping the body functioning.

   A balanced diet usually supplies all the vitamins a person needs.

   Note

   The name carries an early mistake inside it. The Polish biochemist Casimir Funk coined vitamine in 1912 from Latin vīta, "life", and amine, after the discovery of thiamine, when it was thought that all such nutrients would be amines. By 1920 the shorter spelling vitamin was in use. A food is described as rich in vitamins, and a shortage of one particular vitamin brings on its own particular disorder.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialfiguratively

   Used before a word or its first letter to suggest, often playfully, that the thing it names is good for one's health or wellbeing.

   Surfers half-jokingly prescribe each other vitamin sea whenever life gets stressful.

   He insists his weekend hikes give him a hit of vitamin nature that no pill can match.

   Note

   A playful pattern rather than a fixed term. Vitamin is placed before a word, or just its first letter, as if that thing were a nutrient. Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life uses the letter, and "a daily dose of vitamin Church" uses the whole word. The joke depends on the nutritional sense, so keep it to casual or lighthearted writing, where readers will hear the wink.

3. 3
   verbdatedtransitive

   To add vitamins to a food or other product in order to increase its nutritional value.

   Producers vitamin their margarine to match the nutritional profile of butter.

   The factory vitamined its flour during the war to combat widespread deficiency.

   Similarfortify, enrich

   Note

   A noun pressed into service as a verb, and it now has a dated ring. It takes a direct object, the food or product being enriched. Its forms are vitamins, vitamining and vitamined, with no doubled n before the ending. Current writing usually puts the idea differently and says a food is fortified with vitamins. That wording is the safer choice for a label, a report or any careful prose.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3