rhodopsin
noun
rhodopsin is a noun meaning “A light-sensitive pigment in the rod cells of the retina; it consists of an opsin protein bound to the carotenoid retinal” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-H-O-D-O-P-S-I-N and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of rhodopsin is rhodopsins.
What does rhodopsin mean?
noun
- 1
A light-sensitive pigment in the rod cells of the retina; it consists of an opsin protein bound to the carotenoid retinal
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce rhodopsin?
Rhodopsin has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of rhodopsin
- rhodopsins plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is rhodopsin?
Rhodopsin appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 110,368th 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).
Rhodopsin in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a light-sensitive pigment in the rod cells of the retina:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | rodopsina |
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 rhodopsin come from?
From Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon, “rose”), due to its pinkish color, and ὄψις (ópsis, “sight”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).