- This term and others like it (p-chem used to mean physical chemistry) are usually only used by students taking the respective course, not the instructors or other students not enrolled in the course.
o-chem (2)
compounding noun
organic chemistry, specifically an organic chemistry class
Etymology : : at the University of Oklahoma, students abbreviate the course names in the chemistry department often by clipping every letter except the first (or just taking the initial letter of the first descriptive word), then compounding this with a clipping of chemistry: chem. This trend is followed in courses like organic chemistry, where organic is clipped to “o”, and chemistry is clipped to “chem”. These two clippings are compounded together to create “o-chem”. The first letter is pronounced as an initial, so it does not influence the phonetics of the following syllable.
Source : “My o-chem final is gonna be rough.” conversation with my friend, an OU chemistry major, November 8, 2019
Last modified: 10 December 2019