A chemical group that absorbs light and gives a substance its color; also spelled chromophore.
From Greek 'chroma' (color) + 'phoros' (carrying). This variant spelling is less common than 'chromophore,' but both emerged in chemistry in the early 1900s.
The chromophor in a tomato is lycopene, in a leaf is chlorophyll—these are the actual molecular structures that grab light energy, and understanding them revolutionized how we understand color in nature.
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