G10 Review on Covalent Bonding

The first element in the formula is simply listed using the name of the element. The second element is named by taking the stem of the element name and adding the suffix -ide.

A system of numerical prefixes is used to specify the number of atoms in a molecule.

Normally, no prefix is added to the first element’s name if there is only one atom of the first element in a molecule. If the second element is oxygen, the trailing vowel is usually omitted from the end of a polysyllabic prefix but not a monosyllabic one (that is, we would say “monoxide” rather than “monooxide” and “trioxide” rather than “troxide”).