Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of a class of six elementary fermions, two in each of the three generations of fundamental fermions (one negatively charged and one neutral), and including the electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon, and tauon neutrino, together with their associated antiparticles, the antileptons. Leptons participate in weak interactions, but not strong interactions, and have masses generally less than those of mesons and baryons.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The smallest coin of modern Greece, equal to a centime. One hundred lepta make a drachma.
  • noun The typical genus of Leptonidæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physics) an elementary particle that participates in weak interactions but does not participate in the strong interaction; it has a baryon number of 0. Some known leptons are the electron, the negative muon, the tau-minus particle, and the neutrinos associated with each of these particles.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small, bronze Judean coin from the 1st century BC. The lowest value coin ever in circulation. Considered by some to be the widow's mite.
  • noun An elementary particle with a spin of 1/2 (a fermion) which is immune to the strong nuclear force (including the electron, the muon, the neutrino and the tauon).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an elementary particle that participates in weak interactions; has a baryon number of 0
  • noun 100 lepta equal 1 drachma in Greece

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[lepto– + –on.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek λεπτόν (lepton), neuter form of λεπτός (leptos, "small").

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Examples

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  • run of the mill????

    May 22, 2011

  • widow's mite (might)!

    May 22, 2011