Definition of "pyrimidine" [pyrimidine]

• A single-ringed, crystalline organic base, C4H4N2, that forms uracil, cytosine, or thymine and is the parent compound of many drugs, including the barbiturates. (noun)
• Any of several organic compounds derived from or structurally related to pyrimidine, especially the nitrogen bases uracil, cytosine, and thymine. (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.

• "From these results Funk believed the vitamine to belong to a class of substances known as the pyrimidine bases."
• "To improve the fit, researchers led by chemical biologist Nathanael Gray, PhD, prepared a group of inhibitors with a different structural scaffold, known as a pyrimidine core, which, it was thought, would mesh more thoroughly."
• "Recommended name pyrimidine-deoxynucleoside 2'-dioxygenase Synonyms deoxyuridine"