noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A vinylic polymer of styrene, CH₂CHphenyl.

   "It was 30 times lighter and more flexible than the polystyrene that had previously been used."

2. 2
   a polymer of styrene; a rigid transparent thermoplastic wordnet
3. 3
   An alkane chain of benzene molecules, RCH₂CHphenylR.

Synonyms

All synonyms

acrylicplasticthermocolthermocol

Example

More examples

"We've insulated the house with expanded polystyrene foam panels, 100 millimetres thick."

Etymology

From poly- + styrene.

Related phrases

expanded polystyrenepolystyrene worm

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