heme

Questions about heme

What does heme mean?

heme means "a complex red organic pigment containing iron and other atoms to which oxygen binds".

How many syllables are in heme?

heme has 1 syllable under the regular spelling rules, and is not divided further. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for heme?

Close synonyms include haem, hematin, haemitin, protoheme. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is heme a common word?

heme is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.