Question

Is water a nucleophile?

Answer 1

The term nucleophile means the nucleus loving, the nucleus consists of a positive charge and phile means loving. Thus, a group or molecule which attracts towards the positive charge can be called a nucleophile. As water consists of an oxygen atom with a lone pair of electrons it can act as a nucleophile.

Complete answer:
Water is a molecule with the molecular formula of ${H_2}O$ . It consists of one oxygen atom with two lone pairs of electrons and two hydrogen atoms. Due to the availability of lone pairs of electrons on oxygen atoms, it can easily donate these electrons and can be considered as a nucleophile.
Water can attract towards the electron deficient atom like proton to form hydronium ion with the molecular formula of ${H_3}{O^ + }$ . Thus, it can be considered as a nucleus loving nucleophile.
But water can dissociate into protons and hydroxide ions. Thus, a proton was released when water dissociation took place. Thus, it can be considered as a Lewis acid. Lewis acid means which can release a proton. Thus, water can be considered as an electrophile.
Thus, water is a nucleophile as it attracts the electron deficient compound like proton.

Note:
Water can act as both electrophile and nucleophile. But, the nucleophilic character of water is more than electrophilic character due to the ready availability of lone pair of electrons on oxygen atoms. Due to the high value of electronegativity of oxygen it easily attracts electrophiles.