Atomic

How to spell atomic

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce atomic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does atomic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to atoms or to the structure and behaviour of matter at the smallest scale.
2. adjectiveRelating to the energy or weapons produced by splitting the nucleus of an atom.

Atomic in a sentence

• The periodic table lists each element by its atomic number.

• The country built its first atomic power station in the 1950s.

• The laboratory measured the atomic weight of the sample.

• The treaty aimed to limit the spread of atomic weapons.

Where does atomic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek atomos, which literally meant 'uncuttable' or 'indivisible', formed from the prefix a- meaning 'not' and the verb temnein meaning 'to cut'. Ancient Greek philosophers, especially Democritus, used the noun to describe the smallest particle of matter that could not be divided any further. The idea passed into Latin as atomus and entered English in the late 1400s as 'atom', with the adjective 'atomic' appearing in the 1670s to mean 'relating to atoms'. The word gained an entirely new resonance in the twentieth century, when physicists discovered the atom could in fact be split, giving us 'atomic energy' and the 'atomic bomb', so a word that originally meant 'unsplittable' now most often describes the splitting of the atom. The spelling is regular and phonetic, with a single t and a single m, which is the main point worth fixing in memory.

How the word is built

• atom (from Greek atomos: indivisible particle)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to)