What is the general name of hydrocarbons?

Hydrocarbons is a general name. It includes several sub-classes, alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, aromatics, alicyclics and some others all of which are hydrocarbons.

General name? of hydrocarbons?

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first..

chemicals can be divided into 2 main classifications
.. organic
.. inorganic

organic chemicals can be divided into a variety of classes one of them is "hydrocarbons".. (assumed to mean compounds containing only hydrogen and carbon)

hydrocarbons can be substituted.. CH2=CH2 vs CH2=CHCl... for example.. let's ignore those... or non-substituted.

alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, and cyclic compounds can be non-substituted (or substituted)

hydrocarbon and "aliphatic vs aromatic" (which is really more like aromatic vs non-aromatic) is more jargon than true functional groups. ignoring that for now...

aliphatic can include substituted and even some carboxylic acids..

see this pic that may help
http://oi66.tinypic.com/24ez90y.jpg

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now.. "general name"... i.e.. "generalization"... implies you're moving up the chain... from hydrocarbon to "organic compounds

"Hydrocarbon" itself is a general name.

Alkanes. Hydrocarbons composed only of the elements C and H.

Aliphatic and Aromatic hydrocarbons falls as general name of hydrocarbons.

I do know