Semiconductor

How to spell semiconductor

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce semiconductor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does semiconductor mean?

1. nounA material, typically silicon, whose ability to conduct electricity falls between that of a conductor and an insulator, used to make electronic components.

Semiconductor in a sentence

• The factory etches tiny circuits onto each semiconductor wafer.

• A global shortage of semiconductor chips delayed car production for months.

Where does semiconductor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern scientific compound assembled entirely from Latin building blocks. The first part, semi-, is the Latin prefix meaning 'half' or 'partly', the same element found in 'semicircle' and 'semifinal'. The rest comes from 'conductor', which traces to the Latin verb conducere, meaning 'to bring together' or 'to lead along', built from com- 'together' and ducere 'to lead'; that ducere root also gives English 'duct', 'produce', and 'aqueduct'. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 'conductor' had taken on its electrical sense of a material that lets current pass through it. When physicists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries needed a name for materials that conduct only partly, neither fully conducting like metal nor fully insulating, they simply prefixed semi-, and the spelling preserves every original part. Remembering the hidden 'duct' (to lead) helps lock in the central 'd' that some writers drop.

How the word is built

• semi- (half, partly)
• con- (together, from Latin com-)
• duct (lead, from Latin ducere 'to lead')
• -or (agent or thing that performs the action)