What is "catenane"

n. (context organic chemistry English) Any compound, especially a hydrocarbon, having two or more rings interconnected like the links of a chain, without a covalent bond.

A catenane is a mechanically-interlocked molecular architecture consisting of two or more interlocked macrocycles. The interlocked rings cannot be separated without breaking the covalent bonds of the macrocycles. Catenane is derived from the Latin catena meaning "chain". They are conceptually related to other mechanically interlocked molecular architectures, such as rotaxanes, molecular knots or molecular Borromean rings. Recently the terminology " mechanical bond" has been coined that describes the connection between the macrocycles of a catenane.