like one of those listed in Table 4.

4  and discussed previously in

Section 2.13 .

Table 4.4 Common Oxoacids and Their Anions

Remember . . .
Oxoanions  are polyatomic anions in which an atom

of a given element is combined with different numbers

of oxygen atoms (Section 2.12 ).

The names of oxoacids are related to the names of the

corresponding oxoanions, with the -ite or -ate ending of the anion

name replaced by -ous acid or -ic acid, respectively. In other

words, the acid with fewer oxygens has an -ous ending, and the

acid with more oxygens has an -ic ending. The compound HNO2

for example, is called nitrous acid because it has fewer oxygens

and yields the nitrite ion (NO2 − ) when dissolved in water, while

HNO3 is called nitric acid because it has more oxygen atoms and
yields the nitrate ion (NO3 − ) when dissolved in water.

Nitrous Acid Gives Nitrite Ion