Transferability (chemistry)

''This page is about transferability in chemistry. Transferability in economics also exists.''

Transferability, in chemistry, is the assumption that a chemical property that is associated with an atom or a functional group in a molecule will have a similar (but not identical) value in a variety of different circumstances. Examples of transferable properties include:
 * Electronegativity
 * Nucleophilicity
 * Chemical shifts in NMR spectroscopy
 * Characteristic frequencies in Infrared spectroscopy

Transferable properties are distinguished from conserved properties, which are assumed to always have the same value whatever the chemical situation, e.g. relative atomic mass.