Aromatase - I can find the definition in medical dictionaries, but no pronunciation guides. I’m feeling it could be two sylables or three. aroma-taze or aero-ma-taze. My guess is two sylables.

I guess four :-)

edit: Here.

aroma + taze is what I was figuring, I just wasn’t thinking of aroma as three sylables.

Note to self - drink higher quality booze at lunch. The cheap stuff is messing you up.

Dorland’s Medical Dictionary: “ah-ro’mah-ta[macron]s”, i.e. “ah-RO-mah-tayss” or /aroumateis/, with second-syllable stress. Seems about right to me, although I’d probably use a schwa for the second “a”, and maybe for the first “a” too.

The suffix “-ase” is conventional for enzymes, “lactase”, “amylase”, “protease”, etc., right?

Does anybody really pronounce it “-aze”?

Most of my big dictionaries (but not MW3 or Dorland’s) show both pronunciations “-ase”, “-aze”. All show the “-ase” pronunciation.

I don’t recall ever hearing “-aze” (but I might have ignored it occasionally). I’ll listen for it.

D Wilson - 30 March 2007 04:23 PM

I don’t recall ever hearing “-aze” (but I might have ignored it occasionally). I’ll listen for it.

Well, if you haven’t heard it, what shall we plebes know? I’ve always used “-aze” but then…

OK, so somebody says “-aze” after all! And somebody else says “-ase”. Is one pronunciation older and the other newer? Is it regional (e.g., UK vs. US)? Is one more common among certain specialists (physicians, chemists, dieticians)? Or is it random personal choice?

I’m in the US.

Hmm, maybe I’ve ignored it more than occasionally? Or maybe it’s ‘free variation’ and I don’t always say “-ase” myself, or notice the difference?

I just asked my wife--an RN in the US--and she uses “-ase” and no “z”.  so there you have it!  No idea which might be older.

Sorry, I’m slightly baffled as to how to pronounce “-ase”.  Is that with a hard “s”, to rhyme with “face”?  I have always pronounced “-ase” to rhme with “haze”.
I’m in the UK.

AHD says of -ase that it is from diastase, for which it allows either the voiced or unvoiced pronunciation of the S.

But, FWIW, the pronunciation guy who lives at Bartleby uses a hard unvoiced “s”.

There are nine and sixty ways
Of pronouncing “aromatase”
And every single one of them is right!.......

OK, so it doesn’t scan. Azoi.

Biochemists (American ones for sure, and to the best of my recollection the British ones I have known) pronounce the -ase ending for enzymes with an unvoiced ("hard", pace LH) S.  Rhyming with face, not phase or faze.

Edit: I note with astonishment that, according to that “FreeDictionary” page Oecolampadius linked to, Stedman’s Medical Dictionary gives aromatase the z pronunciation.  I will compromise my incognito enough to say that I have been to many presentations by scientists and clinicians on the subject of aromatase inhibitors, and I am quite certain that, in the US at least, the overwhelming majority use the unvoiced s pronunciation.

I am pretty sure the Stedman’s item has a typo.: it should show both pronunciations.

D Wilson - 01 April 2007 06:46 PM

I am pretty sure the Stedman’s item has a typo.: it should show both pronunciations.

Right, it shows the same ending twice.  a·roma·tase (eh-rom-eh-taz, -taz) (The schwas and macroned “a” and “o” are missing because they are graphics, and won’t show up without linking.) I linked to them and they worked in preview, but not good netizenship.

I wonder whether Dave can store such gifs here.