( HAI -DRO-LAI-Z ) TO ADD, EXACTLY THE CORRECT AMOUNT, OF WATER MOLECULES, TO A COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATE, THAT WILL CATALYZE IT TO BREAKDOWN, INTO MORE, SIMPLE SUGARS.
Hydro - water, lyse - split or break. A chemical process in which water adds across a covalent bond and lyses the molecule. In living systems, enzymes drive the hydrolysis reaction.
(hi´ dro lize) [Gr. hydro: water + lysis: cleavage] • To break a chemical bond, as in a peptide linkage, with the insertion of the components of water, -H and -OH, at the cleaved ends of a chain. The digestion of proteins is a hydrolysis.