Stratosphere
noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The region of the uppermost atmosphere where the temperature increases along with the altitude due to the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone.
"Variation in height of the stratosphere (isothermal layer)."
- 2 the atmospheric layer between the troposphere and the mesosphere wordnet
- 3 Collectively, those layers of the Earth’s crust which primarily comprise stratified deposits. obsolete
"So great is the part played by stratified deposits in the structure of the earth’s crust that we might be tempted to speak of the stratosphere of the earth in contradistinction to the scoriosphere of the moon."
Example
More examples"In the stratosphere, roughly 7 to 25 miles above Earth’s surface, the ozone layer acts like sunscreen, shielding the planet from potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer and cataracts, suppress immune systems and also damage plants."
Etymology
From French stratosphère, a word coined by its discoverer, meteorologist Léon Teisserenc de Bort. From strato- + -sphere.
Related phrases
More for "stratosphere"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.