antimatter
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of antimatter
Explanation
Antimatter is composed of antiparticles, which have the opposite charge of regular particles. Antimatter is also called negative matter. Matter makes up all the things that exist: everything in the world is matter. Words beginning with anti are opposed to their root. Therefore, antimatter is the opposite of matter. If antimatter and matter were to collide, both would be destroyed, releasing a huge and dangerous amount of energy. This happens because the particles that make up matter and the antiparticles that make up antimatter have opposite electric charges. The existence of antimatter is something studied by physicists.
Vocabulary lists containing antimatter
Power Prefix: Anti
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Zilch, Zip, Nada: Words For Nothing
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Quantum of Vocabulary: the Parlance of Particle Physics
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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.
Looking ahead, experiments involving positronium interference could also make it possible to test how antimatter responds to gravity.
From Science Daily • Apr. 28, 2026
When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate each other in a burst of energy.
From Science Daily • Mar. 3, 2026
The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
From Science Daily • Mar. 3, 2026
I think of this book as the antimatter to JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025
As it exited the armory, one antimatter friction-induction bomb was subtracted from the Sixers’ computerized inventory.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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.
