microunitn.
/ˈmʌɪkrə(ʊ)juːnɪt/, U.S. /ˈmaɪkroʊˌjunət/ Chiefly Medicine.
A millionth part of a unit of measurement; spec. one millionth of an international unit (as of insulin or other hormone).
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the world > life > biology > laboratory analysis > measure > [noun] > unit
international unit1857
microunit1900
morgan1919
megaunit1920
S1942
Svedberg unit1942
quantum1952
Somogyi unit1956
cistron1957
1900 W. A. N. Dorland Amer. Illustr. Med. Dict. 392/1 Micro-unit, a unit of small measurements.
1911 T. L. Stedman Pract. Med. Dict. 533/1 Microunit, the millionth of an ordinary unit, such as a meter, gram, ohm, etc.
1947 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 135 48 The terms milliunit (mU) and microunit (μU) will be used to denote the antidiuretic activity of 10-4 and 10-7 c.c. respectively of the commercial extract.
1959 Nature 21 Nov. 1649/2 Two to three micro-units of human insulin were detectable in the experiment depicted.
1962 Lancet 13 Jan. 73/2 This difference is highly significant statistically..whether the figures are considered at the level of net glucose uptake or after conversion into microunits of insulin per millilitre.
1974 V. B. Mountcastle et al. Med. Physiol. (ed. 13) I. xxxi. 821/2 Changes of only a few microunits per milliliter of blood are reported.
1995 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92 9712 All the assays had sensitivity in the same range (1.5-5 microunits/ml or 64-214 pg/ml).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1900