-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).

Origin of -tron

by initial shortening of electron, with perhaps accidental allusion to the Gk instrumental suffix -tron, as in árotron plough

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

British Dictionary definitions for -tron

-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

Word Origin and History for -tron

as a word-forming element in new compounds formed in physics, 1939, abstracted from electron (Greek -tron was an instrumentive suffix).