Title: chiral
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - chiral
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.C01057
Status: current

Definition
Having the property of chirality. As applied to a molecule the term has been used differently by different workers. Some apply it exclusively to the whole molecule, whereas others apply it to parts of a molecule. For example, according to the latter view, a meso-compound is considered to be composed of two chiral parts of opposite chirality sense; this usage is to be discouraged. In its application to an assembly of molecules, some restrict the term to an assembly in which all of the molecules have the same chirality sense, which is better called enantiopure. Others extend it to a racemic assembly, which is better just called a racemate. Use of the term to describe molecular assemblies should be avoided.

Related Terms
- chirality: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01058
- chirality sense: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01063
- enantiomorph: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02079
- enantiopure: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02072
- meso: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/M03838
- racemate: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/R05025
- racemic: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/R05026

Source
- PAC, 1996, 68, 2193. 'Basic terminology of stereochemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1996)' on page 2202 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199668122193)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01057/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01057/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01057/xml

Citation: Citation: 'chiral' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.C01057
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Accessed: 2026-05-30T08:07:23+00:00