ATOM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Atom

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/ˈætəm/ Listen

noun

Atom n.

(Physics)

(a)

An ultimate indivisible particle of matter.

(b)

An ultimate particle of matter not necessarily indivisible; a molecule.

(c)

A constituent particle of matter, or a molecule supposed to be made up of subordinate particles. Note: These three definitions correspond to different views of the nature of the ultimate particles of matter. In the case of the last two, the particles are more correctly called molecules.

(Chem.) The smallest particle of matter that can enter into combination; one of the elementary constituents of a molecule.

Anything extremely small; a particle; a whit. "There was not an atom of water."

verb

Atom v. t. To reduce to atoms. (Obs.)

See images of 'Atom'

Etymology of 'Atom'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Atom" Quotes from Famous Books

... what the dinner consisted of. It was a mixture of fish and vegetable matter, but not an atom ...

— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... no atom worn: My oldest force is good as new; And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens ...

— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... oxygen, combined with absolute precision everywhere. All chemical reactions require computations of an intelligent being. All nature teems with proofs that God is every where present. The elements in a high explosive are arranged instantly in new combinations, each atom taking its proper partners, in the proper proportion, with unerring precision. Countless calculations of the most difficult kind are made instantly and continually by the divine mind. Thus God's presence everywhere in the minutest forms ...

— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... laughable than Smollett's; his wit as often misses as hits; he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or Sterne; but he has brought together a greater variety of characters in common life, marked with more distinct peculiarities, and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel writer whatever. The extreme subtlety of observation on the springs of human conduct in ordinary characters, is only equalled by the ingenuity of contrivance in bringing those springs into play, in such a manner as to lay open their smallest irregularity. The ...

— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... stage we have now reached in the release of atomic energy will be the last. Indeed, the speed of our scientific and technical progress over the last seven years shows no signs of abating. We are being hurried forward, in our mastery of the atom, from one discovery to another, toward yet unforeseeable peaks ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

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