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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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az(o)- Also azot(o)-.

Nitrogen; the chemical radical -N=N-.

[Obsolete azote, nitrogen, from French, generated from Greek a-, without, and zōē, life (because nitrogen gas goes not support life). ]

Some terms in azo- refer generally to the presence of nitrogen, or to compounds containing nitrogen: an azide is a compound containing the unstable N3 radical, such as sodium azide, NaN3.

More specifically, the suffix refers to the presence of the group -N=N- (the azo group) in chemical compounds, for example in azobenzene, an orange-red, crystalline powder with the formula C6H5N=NC6H5.

Compounds containing azoto- include azotobacter, an aerobic nitrogen-fixing bacterium. In medicine, azotemia is the retention of excessive amounts of nitrogenous compounds in the blood.

See also nitro-.

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