phases of matter

Cultural  

1. The states in which matter can exist: as a solid, liquid, or gas. When temperature changes, matter can undergo a phase change, shifting from one form to another. Examples of phase changes are melting (changing from a solid to a liquid), freezing (changing from a liquid to a solid), evaporation (changing from a liquid to a gas), and condensation (changing from a gas to a liquid). (See boiling point, condensation point, freezing point, melting point, triple point, and vaporization.)

---

Example Sentences

"And more complicated systems are where we look for new phases of matter, which have driven a lot of technological breakthroughs in the past."

From Science Daily • Apr. 27, 2026

Phase changes among the various phases of matter depend on temperature and pressure.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

The answers “will give a new picture of physics,” Tsai said, adding that they could have a bearing on the stability of other little-understood phases of matter.

From Scientific American • Jun. 18, 2014

"We can't even answer the fundamental question of how many phases of matter exist," says Sean Hartnoll, a string theorist at Stanford University in California.

From Nature • Oct. 19, 2011

Porthos spoke these words with that heroic nature, which, with him, grew greater with all the phases of matter.

From The Vicomte de Bragelonne Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" by Dumas père, Alexandre