-tron

a combining form extracted from electron, used with nouns or combining forms, principally in the names of electron tubes (ignitron; klystron; magnetron) and of devices for accelerating subatomic particles (cosmotron; cyclotron); also, more generally, in the names of any kind of chamber or apparatus used in experiments (biotron).

QUIZZES

QUIZ YOURSELF ON THESE WORDS FROM BROWN GIRL DREAMING!

Visualize yourself passing this quiz on words from Jacqueline Woodson’s exquisite verse novel “Brown Girl Dreaming,” and then take the quiz to prove you can do it! (Because you can.)
Question 1 of 10
What does “barren” mean?
a cylindrical wooden container with slightly bulging sides.
Worn down by dullness, tedious repetition.
unproductive; unfruitful
TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

Origin of -tron

By initial shortening of electron, with perhaps accidental allusion to the Greek instrumental suffix -tron, as in árotron “plough”
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

British Dictionary definitions for -tron (1 of 2)

tron
/ (trɒn) /

noun

a public weighing machine
the place where a tron is set up; marketplace

Word Origin for tron

C15: from Old French trone, from Latin trutina, from Greek trutanē balance, set of scales

British Dictionary definitions for -tron (2 of 2)

-tron

suffix forming nouns

indicating a vacuum tubemagnetron
indicating an instrument for accelerating atomic or subatomic particlessynchrotron

Word Origin for -tron

from Greek, suffix indicating instrument
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012