noun
: any or all of a group of fat-soluble vitamins that consist of the tocopherols, are essential in the nutrition of various animals (as some rodents, ruminant mammals, and poultry) in which their absence is associated with infertility, muscular dystrophy, or abnormalities in the vascular system, are found especially in the leaves of many plants and in oils from seed germs, and are used chiefly in supplementing animal feeds and as antioxidants in foods and pharmaceutical preparations ; especially : tocopherol a