Diffraction

How to spell diffraction

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce diffraction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does diffraction mean?

1. nounThe bending and spreading of waves, such as light or sound, as they pass around an obstacle or through a narrow opening.

Diffraction in a sentence

• The physics lecture explained how diffraction spreads light into a pattern of bright and dark bands.

• Engineers studied the diffraction of radio waves around tall buildings to improve signal coverage.

Where does diffraction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a scientific word built from Latin roots. It traces to the Latin verb diffringere, 'to break in pieces' or 'to shatter', which combines dis- meaning 'apart' with frangere meaning 'to break'. The Italian physicist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the Latin noun diffractio in the seventeenth century to describe how a beam of light seems to bend and break apart into bands when it passes the edge of an obstacle, and the term entered English in the early eighteenth century as 'diffraction'. The same frangere root that means 'to break' gives us everyday relatives such as 'fracture', 'fragment', and 'fragile', so the spelling carries the idea of light being broken up. Remembering the double f from dif- plus the fract spine helps fix the awkward middle: it is dif-fract-ion, not 'difraction'.

How the word is built

• dif- (apart, from dis-)
• fract (break, from frangere)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)