Phosphine

//ˈfɒsfiːn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A toxic gas, chemical formula PH₃. uncountable
  2. 2
    a colorless gas with a strong fishy smell; used as a pesticide wordnet
  3. 3
    Any alkyl or aryl derivative of this compound, PR₃ (where at least one R is not H), countable
  4. 4
    Chrysaniline, often in the form of a salt. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
colorhydride of phosphorusphosphaminephosphanephosphanephosphorated hydrogen

Example

More examples

"An international team of astronomers Monday announced the discovery of a rare gas molecule — phosphine — in the clouds of Venus."

Etymology

From phosph- + -ine.

Related phrases

diethyl phosphinemonoethyl phosphinephosphine imidephosphine oxidephosphine sulfidephosphine sulphidephosphinic acidprimary phosphinesecondary phosphinetertiary phosphinetriethyl phosphine

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.