in chemistry, any of a large class of organic compounds in which three or more atoms of the element carbon are linked together in a ring. The bonds between pairs of adjacent atoms may all be of the type designated single bonds (involving two electrons), or some of them may be double or triple bonds (with four or six electrons, respectively); six-membered rings for which a system of alternating single and double bonds may be envisioned, however, belong to another important class (aromatic compounds (aromatic compound)), distinguished from the alicyclic compounds by a characteristically different pattern of chemical reactivity. Those alicyclic compounds in which the ring contains three or four carbon atoms are less stable than the compounds having larger rings, because the angles formed by adjacent covalent bonds are smaller than is necessary for maximum effectiveness. In the larger rings all the bond angles have the preferred value (about 109.5°); consequently, the atoms in the ring do not lie in one plane. Similar restrictions on the angles in double and triple bonds affect the stability of alicyclic compounds containing such bonds.