Egg White Is Albumin or Albumen?

Despite their difference in meanings, albumen and albumin are two words still used wrongly by many people. Let's clarify this confusion in this post.

The word historically used to refer to the white part of the egg is albumen. This arises from a Latin word, albus, which means 'white'. In Latin, you will also find the word albûmen to mean 'egg white', with a pronunciation mark on top of 'u', which is called a macron diacritic.

The word albumin is an entirely English word, which has no connection to Latin word above (at least directly). It refers to a water-soluble protein found in many plant and animal tissues, including and prominently in the egg white or albumen. That's how it gets its name. The suffix, 'in' is used to indicate that the protein is a neutral chemical compound.

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