Question

What is an electrophile?

Answer 1

An `"electrophile"` is literally an `"electron lover..."`

Explanation:

And especially in organic chemistry, we conceive of reactivity as the interaction of `"electrophiles"`, electron-deficient species, with `"nucleophiles"`, electron-rich species, i.e. those that are formally anionic, or which bear a lone pair of electrons.

And given the definition, we could identify as `"electrophiles"` protons, `H^+`, the ipso-carbon in `R-stackrel(""^+delta)CH_2X`, or the carbon centre in `Rstackrel(""^+delta)C(=O)R'`, or `stackrel(""^+delta)CO_2`....