Definition of "carotene" [carotene]

• An orange-yellow to red crystalline pigment, C40H56, found in animal tissue and certain plants, such as carrots and squash. It exists in several isomeric forms and is converted to vitamin A in the liver. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They therefore proposed that carotene is a provitamin, an immediate precursor to"
• "A: Flamingos are pink thanks to their diet, which is high in carotene, a natural food color found in carrots."
• "Rosenheim in London discovered simultaneously and independently of each other the fact that the carotene in carrots consists of two separate components: one of these, b-carotene, rotates the plane of polarized light to the right, while the other, a-carotene is optically inactive."