Neuron

How to spell neuron

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce neuron

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does neuron mean?

1. nounA specialised cell of the nervous system that transmits electrical and chemical signals.

Neuron in a sentence

• Each neuron passes a signal to the next cell across a tiny gap.

• The brain contains billions of cells, and a single neuron can connect to thousands of others.

Where does neuron come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek neuron, which originally meant a sinew, tendon, or cord, and only later came to be applied to the nerves of the body. Ancient writers used it for the tough fibres that hold the body together, so the leap to the nervous system was a natural one once anatomy advanced. The modern scientific sense, a single nerve cell, was introduced in 1891 by the German anatomist Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer, who needed a clean term for the basic unit of the nervous system. The ending -on echoes the pattern seen in other scientific units and particles, such as electron and proton, which is part of why the spelling settles on -on rather than the -one some writers expect. The same Greek root also underlies neurology and neurotic, so keeping neur- firmly in mind helps fix the start of the word.

How the word is built

• neur- (from Greek neuron: nerve, sinew, cord)
• -on (noun suffix marking a discrete unit or particle)