---
title: "How to pronounce \"ylide\" in English | SayItVid"
description: "Learn how to say \"ylide\" correctly. Watch real-life video examples and master your English pronunciation with SayItVid."
image: "https://img.youtube.com/vi/-fBPX-4kFlw/hqdefault.jpg"
url: "https://sayitvid.com/pronounce/ylide"
---


# How to pronounce "ylide" in English

## Pronunciation & Phonetics

- **IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)**: `/ˈɪlaɪd/`
- **Syllable Breakdown**: **y·lide**
- **Parts of Speech**: noun
- **NOUN**: Any organic compound in which two adjacent atoms are connected by both a covalent and an ionic bond; normally written X⁺–Y⁻

## Real-Life Native Speaker Examples (10 Video Clips)

Listen to native speakers pronounce "ylide" in real conversation:

### Example 1
> "It’s named after Georg Wittig, who won the Chemistry Nobel Prize for his work in 1979. An ylide – and yes that's spelled y-l-i-d-e because English is annoying sometimes – is a molecule with adjacent atoms that have opposite formal charges: specifically a negatively charged carbanion attached to an atom with a positive charge."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 8:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=517s)

### Example 2
> "Anyhow, you have this the so-called ylide, and then it can act as a nucleophile with a carbonyl, and now the"
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 35:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrLxWvCmzXo&t=2130s)

### Example 3
> "We can reduce them to form alcohols. And they allow us to extend the carbon chain by reactions with ylides. In the next episode, we’ll look at organometallic chemistry – the chemistry of molecules with carbon-metal bonds Until then, thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Organic Chemistry."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 11:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=666s)

### Example 4
> "And since aldehydes and ketones have trigonal planar molecular geometry, the hydride can attack one side or the other, and we get a racemic mixture at a chiral carbon. One last reagent that deserves a mention is the Wittig reagent, AKA phosphonium ylide. It’s named after Georg Wittig, who won the Chemistry Nobel Prize for his work in 1979."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 8:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=506s)

### Example 5
> "As we saw in episode 27, acetylides are powerful nucleophiles which can form new carbon-carbon bonds -- super useful for chemists! We also use organolithium compounds as our strong bases when making Wittig reagents, aka phosphonium ylides, which we also talked about in episode 27. First, we need to make a phosphonium salt by reacting triphenylphosphine with a haloalkane in an SN2 reaction -- head back to episodes 20 and 21 for a refresher on these concepts."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 4:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYddXjm6QRw&t=274s)

### Example 6
> "This is another example of a resonance structure. So when we react an aldehyde or a ketone via the Wittig reaction, the mechanism begins when the nucleophilic carbanion of the ylide attacks the electropositive carbonyl carbon – similar to these other reactions we've been doing!"
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 9:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=541s)

### Example 7
> "– similar to these other reactions we've been doing! This makes a zwitterion, a molecule containing atoms with positive and negative formal charges that are not adjacent – so it's slightly different from an ylide. In this case, the negatively charged oxygen of our zwitterion quickly reacts with the positively charged phosphorus to form a four-membered ring species called a 1,2-oxaphosphetane."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 9:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=553s)

### Example 8
> "This process is so fast, we often represent it as one step with two arrows. And, by the way, this reaction only works with a primary ylide – if we had two alkyl groups on the negatively charged carbon, the reactant is too chunky and the reaction doesn’t work. The Wittig reaction is another carbon-carbon bond-making reaction, and chemists really love those!"
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 9:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=597s)

### Example 9
> "So we won't get into it here. If we can draw resonance structures for the carbanion in our Wittig reagent, we have a molecule called a stabilized ylide. This reagent with different resonance structures has slightly lower reactivity and gives us the E-alkene."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 10:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fBPX-4kFlw&t=622s)

### Example 10
> "Thanks to the polar C=O bond in a carbonyl group, the carbonyl carbon has a partially positive charge. In episode 27, we talked about cyanide, acetylide anions, and the phosphonium ylides used in the Wittig reaction attacking this partially positive carbon. These reactions extend the carbon chain, allowing us to make bigger, more complicated molecules."
- **Jump to Video Timestamp**: [Watch on YouTube at 1:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz8G97H27EE&t=81s)


## Related Words & Synonyms

- **Nearby Vocabulary**: [ylaid](https://sayitvid.com/pronounce/ylaid), [ylidic](https://sayitvid.com/pronounce/ylidic), [ylod](https://sayitvid.com/pronounce/ylod), [yliaster](https://sayitvid.com/pronounce/yliaster)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do you pronounce "ylide" correctly?
"ylide" is pronounced `/ˈɪlaɪd/`. Syllable breakdown: **y·lide**.

### What does "ylide" mean in context?
Any organic compound in which two adjacent atoms are connected by both a covalent and an ionic bond; normally written X⁺–Y⁻

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