Title: reactive
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - reactive
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.R05180
Status: current

Definition
As applied to a chemical species, the term expresses a kinetic property. A species is said to be more reactive or to have a higher reactivity in some given context than some other (reference) species if it has a larger rate constant for a specified elementary reaction. The term has meaning only by reference to some explicitly stated or implicitly assumed set of conditions. It is not to be used for reactions or reaction patterns of compounds in general. The term is also more loosely used as a phenomenological description not restricted to elementary reactions. When applied in this sense the property under consideration may reflect not only rate, but also equilibrium, constants.

Related Terms
- chemical species: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/CT01038
- elementary reaction: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02035
- rate constant: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/O04322
- stable: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/S05900
- unreactive: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/U06567
- unstable: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/U06569

Source
- PAC, 1994, 66, 1077. 'Glossary of terms used in physical organic chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1994)' on page 1159 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199466051077)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05180/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05180/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05180/xml

Citation: Citation: 'reactive' 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.R05180
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-05-18T10:36:33+00:00