What does "w-boson" mean?

a fundamental particle, a gauge boson, that, together with the Z-boson, mediates the weak nuclear force; it has a charge of ± 1

What is a synonym for "w-boson"?

Common synonyms include: w particle.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
a fundamental particle, a gauge boson, that, together with the Z-boson, mediates the weak nuclear force; it has a charge of ± 1 particle

Coined by Chinese physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Yang Chen-Ning in 1960; the W is believed to stand for weak.

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