The building blocks of English
Affixes
-kinin
A hormone.
Greek kinēsis, motion, plus ‑in (see ‑ine3).
The first example, and the model for others, was bradykinin (Greek bradus, slow), a peptide hormone that causes blood vessels to dilate and smooth muscle to contract (as it were, to set them in motion); tachykinin (Greek takhus, swift), any of a class of substances and having a rapid stimulant effect on smooth muscle. Kinin (formed from bradykinin) is the general term for this group of substances, formed in body tissue in response to injury; in botany that term indicates a plant hormone (also called a cytokinin) that promotes cell division and growth and inhibits ageing.
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