cyanogen
/saɪˈæn.ə.d͡ʒɪn/noun
cyanogen is a noun meaning “The pseudohalogen (CN)₂; a colorless, poisonous gas used as a rocket propellant, an insecticide and in chemical warfare” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-Y-A-N-O-G-E-N, and it appears about once in every 7 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of cyanogen is cyanogens.
What does cyanogen mean?
noun
- 1
The pseudohalogen (CN)₂; a colorless, poisonous gas used as a rocket propellant, an insecticide and in chemical warfare.
- 2
The radical -CN.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce cyanogen?
- /saɪˈæn.ə.d͡ʒɪn/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-cyanogen.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cyanogen
- cyanogens plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is cyanogen?
Cyanogen appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 77,666th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Cyanogen in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense organic compound:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cyanogen come from?
From cyano- + -gen; compare French cyanogène. So called because it produced blue dyes.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).