Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A unit of length equal to one millionth (10-6) of a meter. No longer in technical use.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The millionth part of a meter, or of an English inch. This term has been formally adopted by the International Commission of Weights and Measures, representing the civilized nations of the world, and is adopted by all metrologists. The quantity is denoted by the Greek letter
μ written above the line: as, 25.4.
Wiktionary
- n. physics A unit of length; the thousandth part of one millimeter; the millionth part of a meter.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Physics) A measure of length; the thousandth part of one millimeter; the millionth part of a meter.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a metric unit of length equal to one millionth of a meter
Etymologies
- New Latin, from Ancient Greek μικρόν, neuter of μικρός ("small"). (Wiktionary)
- From Greek mīkron, neuter of mīkros, small. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Spanish; another to express the more open vowels; another the less open vowels; for which the word micron is here used, and for which the word mega is here used.”
“Motility of bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli with a body size of 1 ~ 2 micron, is driven by rapid rotation of a helical propeller by such a tiny little motor at its base.”
A self-assembling nanomachine with fine switching capability
“Ch Spanish; another to express the more open vowels; another the less open vowels; for which the word micron is here used, and for which the word mega is here used.”
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
“Plastic shopping bags are currently about 15 microns thick (a micron is a thousandth of a millimetre).”
“Then the following characters only might be necessary to express them all; P alone, or with antesonance B; with narisonance M; with sibilance W German; with sonisibilance W; with vocality, termed micron”
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
“Aerosols measure only about a tenth of a micron, which is really, really tiny compared to cloud droplets, which are often roughly 10 microns across," says Marshak.”
“The corrosion is often impossible to see with the naked eye because it's so small -- as small as a micron, which is a millionth of a meter, Bond said.”
“LIEBERMAN: So is the presumption now that the terrorists who were sending the anthrax through the mail were operating at such a level of sophistication that they had not only refined the anthrax to the -- one micron, which is not visible to the eye, but that they had put openings in the envelopes or package coverings that were slightly larger than the one micron, but large enough when handled to let some of the anthrax spores out?”
“If the aperture, made by approximating the back part of the tongue to the uvula and pendulous curtain of the palate, as in forming the sibilant letter H, and the sonisibilant letter Ch Spanish, be enlarged just so much as to prevent sibilancy; and a continued sound produced by the larynx be modulated in passing through it; the letter A is formed, as in ball, wall, which is sounded like aw in the word awkward; and is the most usual sound of the letter A in foreign languages; and to distinguish it from the succeeding A might be called A micron; as the aperture of the fauces, where it is produced, is less than in the next A.”
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
“7 The micron is the unit of microscopical measurements.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘micron’.
-
Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
-
On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
-
Clearinghouse
For stuff to simply reside.
calcar, pinion, espadrille, antipodes, peregrine, cormorant, tanager, vireo, farrago, undervest, passerine, oscine and 881 more...
-
Words and phrases from the short stor...
implementation, chugwater, photochemical, benign, bicarbonaceous, precipitates, databasing, ozonation, lateral, equilibria, punk rockers, bicarbonate of soda and 67 more...
-
Name Suggestions for Ultra-Compact Cars
A companion list to Name Suggestions for Even Bigger SUVs and Trucks. :-)
Sounds best when you preface each word with "the."speck, iota, minute, mote, dot, jot, mite, molecule, particle, smidgen, morsel, scintilla and 64 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for micron.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.