Compound Polarity Lookup I know from the literature that the following compounds have decreasing polarity: Rosmarinic Acid -&gt; TMF -&gt; Sinensetin and I guess comparing compounds of similar structure it is manageable to compare bond types, groups etc etc by which to order their polarity, but what about compounds with very different structures, groups and bonds, especially when you want to rapidly order 10's-100's of compounds.
My questions:

Is there such a thing as an absolute measure of &quot;polarity&quot; for a compound by which other compounds can be compared/ordered?

Depending on 2) is there a resource whereby you can lookup your compound to obtain its polarity?


I am asking this question from a Chromatography perspective. I would like to know the order of separation for a group of compounds and how to know what &quot;polarity&quot; of mobile phase to start my experimentations with.
Polarity is an umbrella term which is popular among organic chemists. It is as vague as saying the weather is good today. &quot;Good weather&quot; may include, bright light, sunny, temperature, right humidity and so on.  Now read your own statement

Rosmarinic Acid -&gt; TMF -&gt; Sinensetin and I guess comparing compounds
of similar structure it manageable to compare bond types, groups etc
etc

Since you correctly use etc. etc. ...yes polarity includes et cetra et cetra. Its usage is discouraged by IUPAC.
The correct term is dipolarity which is a measure of the dipole moment (you can look them up in tables). Even that dipole moment is of no good because you have plenty of conformers and each conformer has a different dipole moment (at least in the gas phase).