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xanthine

/ˈzænθin/noun

xanthine is a noun meaning “Any of a group of alkaloids that include caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine as well as the parent compound, a precursor of uric acid found in…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled X-A-N-T-H-I-N-E, and it appears about once in every 17 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of xanthine is xanthines.

What does xanthine mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any of a group of alkaloids that include caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine as well as the parent compound, a precursor of uric acid found in many organs of the body.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce xanthine?

  • UK /ˈzanθiːn/
  • UK /ˈzanθaɪn/
  • US /ˈzænθin/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-xanthine.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of xanthine

  • xanthines plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is xanthine?

Xanthine appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 122,704th 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).

Words people confuse with xanthine

Sounds like: xanthene (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Xanthine in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense group of alkaloids, including caffeine:

LanguageWords
Frenchxanthine
GermanXanthin
Portuguesexantina
Spanishxantina

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 xanthine come from?

From international scientific vocabulary, from French xanthine, reflecting New Latin combining forms: xanth- + -ine; ultimately from Ancient Greek ξανθός (xanthós, “yellow”), because xanthine is yellowish-white. By surface analysis, xanth- + -ine.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).