[1890–95; inul(in) + -ase]This word is first recorded in the period 1890–95. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: blanket roll, bootstrap, cholesterol, historicism, wireless-ase is a suffix used in the names of enzymes. Other words that use the affix -ase include: hyaluronidase, lipase, phosphorylase, reverse transcriptase, zymase