Hadron
//ˈhæd.ɹɒn// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A composite particle that comprises two or more quarks held together by the strong force and (consequently) can interact with other particles via said force; a meson or a baryon. particle
"The weak decays of b hadrons are dominated by the spectator model process whereby the b quark decays to a c quark (or occasionally a u quark) with the emission of an external W, while the non-b antiquark or diquark acts simply as a passive spectator to the decay."
- 2 any elementary particle that interacts strongly with other particles wordnet
Example
More examples"Results from the Large Hadron Collider mean that supersymmetry theorists may have to come up with a new theory of sub-atomic physics."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἁδρός (hadrós, “thick”) + -on. Coined by Russian physicist Lev Okun in 1962 in a plenary talk at the International Conference on High Energy Physics.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.