halogen
Americannoun
noun
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Any of a group of five nonmetallic elements with similar properties. The halogens are fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine. Because they are missing an electron from their outermost shell, they react readily with most metals to form salts.
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See Periodic Table
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Explanation
A halogen is a chemical element that forms a salt when it reacts with metal. Halogen lamps are illuminated by bulbs that contain a halogen and an inert gas. There are five halogens in the periodic table of chemical elements: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine. The halogens are all highly reactive, which means they're quick to form bonds with other elements. What they often end up becoming is some kind of salt, including common table salt. In fact, the literal translation of halogen is "salt-producer," from Greek roots hals, "salt," and gen, "giving birth to."
Vocabulary lists containing halogen
Chemistry - High School
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Structure and Properties of Matter - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He did a more-than-competent job—he was Rossini after all—but the result always reminds me of shining a halogen light into a place of hallowed dim.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
Also, LED lights "are a lot more directional, so you've got this much brighter, whiter light in a very directional point hitting your eye compared to the more diffuse halogen ones".
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026
The housing for halogen bulbs is not compatible with LED bulbs, and a retrofitted car will not pass its annual MOT check-up.
From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2025
Overall, the present results underscore the importance of halogen bonds in the photoinduced dynamics, offering a better understanding of the synergistic spin transition.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 4, 2024
As the broiling sun set, a different kind of American landscape lit up: The halogen floodlights from the truck stop could be seen for miles.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
By combining different halide salts, researchers created MXenes with two or even three types of surface halogens in carefully controlled proportions.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 4, 2026
Firstly, they are two to three times as bright as traditional halogens, and their "colour temperature" is bluer and whiter, which mimics natural daylight.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026
A team from France and Germany has now studied the rapid decay of molecules containing halogens.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 2, 2024
The binary compounds of a metal with the halogens are the halides.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
It burns with dazzling brilliancy in oxygen, and combines directly with many other elements, especially with sulphur and the halogens.
From An Elementary Study of Chemistry by McPherson, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
