atomic
pronunciation
How to pronounce atomic in British English:
UK [əˈtɒmɪk]
How to pronounce atomic in American English:
US [əˈtɑːmɪk]
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- Adjective:
- of or relating to or comprising atoms
- (weapons) deriving destructive energy from the release of atomic energy
- immeasurably small
Word Origin
- atomic (adj.)
- 1670s as a philosophical term (see atomistic); scientific sense dates from 1811, from atom + -ic. Atomic number is from 1821; atomic mass is from 1848. Atomic energy first recorded 1906 in modern sense (as intra-atomic energy from 1903). March, 1903, was an historic date for chemistry. It is, also, as we shall show, a date to which, in all probability, the men of the future will often refer as the veritable beginning of the larger powers and energies that they will control. It was in March, 1903, that Curie and Laborde announced the heat-emitting power of radium. [Robert Kennedy Duncan, "The New Knowledge," 1906] Atomic bomb first recorded 1914 in writings of H.G. Wells, who thought of it as a bomb "that would continue to explode indefinitely." When you can drop just one atomic bomb and wipe out Paris or Berlin, war will have become monstrous and impossible. [S. Strunsky, "Yale Review," January 1917] Atomic Age is from 1945. Atomical is from 1640s.
Example
- 1. The atomic explosion is always accompanied by huge fireball .
- 2. Is atomic energy clean and green ?
- 3. Atomic bombs are atomic bombs .
- 4. Japanis the only country to have suffered atomic bomb attacks .
- 5. China has operated its own atomic plants since 1994 .