Protomolecule
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A collection of unstably bound atoms that has the potential to form a molecule if the structure can shed sufficient energy.
"Molecular hydrogen is by the way a very difficult species to form in the gas phase by radiative association of H atoms, mainly because the protomolecule formed in this way is vibrationally highly excited and cannot get rid of the energy excess to enter inside the potential well and reach stability in a time short enough to avoid breaking."
- 2 A relatively simple molecule from which a more complex molecule is derived.
"It is most probable that all matter is simply the allotropic expression of one element and that the protomolecule is the union of the positively and negatively electrified etheric corpuscle."
Example
More examples"Molecular hydrogen is by the way a very difficult species to form in the gas phase by radiative association of H atoms, mainly because the protomolecule formed in this way is vibrationally highly excited and cannot get rid of the energy excess to enter inside the potential well and reach stability in a time short enough to avoid breaking."
Etymology
From proto- + molecule.
More for "protomolecule"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.