- This term is a casual scientific term; OD would not be used as a verb in a published scientific article. It developed as shorthand: “I’m going to find the OD of this sample” shortened to “I’m going to OD this sample.” The people likely to use this term are those who work in a research lab (likely biology/chemistry/biochemistry) and use this technique often enough to want to use the shortest way possible to talk about it. This type of conversion seems to be a common occurrence for lab techniques, since they are commonly used and often casually talked about (for example, this also happened for mass). OD, when used as a noun, is accepted and can be seen in published papers. The noun OD is an acronym which stands for optical density. Optical density is a compound, and it is metaphorical, since it is not the mass/volume that is being measured but rather how much light is transmitted through the sample (which therefore gives the concentration of the material absorbing light in the solution).
OD (2)
zero derivation transitive verb
to use a UV-Vis spectrophotometer to identify the optical density (absorbance) of a solution at a single wavelength
Etymology : : the verb form of OD comes from the noun OD. OD as a noun is an acronym for Optical Density. Optical is the adjective form of optic, which comes from latin “opticus,” which means “seeing” through the French word obtique. The Latin word can be traced back through Greek “optikos” back to the Proto Indo-European root “okw” meaning “relating to sight.” The word density originated from the Latin “densus” meaning “thick.” A derivative, densitas, passed into French as “dempsite” and later “densite,” which the English version comes from. The specialized physics meaning originated around the 1660’s.
Source : I need to go OD this so I can calculate how much I need to add to each well.” September 2019, said by a lab member
Last modified: 10 December 2019