A salt or chemical compound formed by the reaction of cinchona alkaloids with an acid, used in pharmaceutical preparations.
From cinchona + -ate (chemical suffix for salts and compounds), following standard organic chemistry nomenclature. This term allowed chemists to distinguish between the natural alkaloid and the salt forms used in actual medicines.
When pharmaceutical chemists make medicine, they often convert plant alkaloids into salt forms because salts dissolve better in water and are easier to measure precisely—so cinchonate salts are what actually go into antimalarial pills, not raw cinchona alkaloid.
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