deuterium

[ doo-teer-ee-uhm, dyoo- ]

/ duˈtɪər i əm, dyu- /

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noun Chemistry.

an isotope of hydrogen, having twice the mass of ordinary hydrogen; heavy hydrogen. Symbols:2H, D; atomic weight: 2.01; atomic number: 1.

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Origin of deuterium

1933; <Greek deúter(os) second (see deutero-) + -ium

Words nearby deuterium

deuter-, deuteragonist, deuteranopia, deuterate, deuteride, deuterium, deuterium oxide, deutero-, deuterocanonical, deuterocanonical books, deuterogamy

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use deuterium in a sentence

Within the atmosphere were signs of deuterium—a heavy isotope of hydrogen that can result from the breakdown of water.
Venus doesn’t have enough water in its clouds to sustain life|Neel V. Patel|June 28, 2021|MIT Technology Review
While free hydrogen atoms that were once part of a water molecule escape into space, free deuterium weighs enough to hang around in the air.
Mars Has Much More Water Than Previously Known—But There's a Catch|Jeffrey Kluger|March 16, 2021|Time
If all of Mars’s water had escaped to space, taking its free hydrogen atoms with it, there would be much more deuterium in the modern day Martian sky relative to the remaining free hydrogen—by some measures, more than twice as much.
Mars Has Much More Water Than Previously Known—But There's a Catch|Jeffrey Kluger|March 16, 2021|Time
In 2014, Cooke and co-authors precisely measured the abundance of deuterium in the universe through observations of faraway gas clouds.
Physicists Pin Down Nuclear Reaction From Moments After the Big Bang|Thomas Lewton|November 11, 2020|Quanta Magazine

Every second, the LUNA experiment fires 100 trillion protons at a target of deuterium.
Physicists Pin Down Nuclear Reaction From Moments After the Big Bang|Thomas Lewton|November 11, 2020|Quanta Magazine
From that, they extracted the ratio of the number of deuterium atoms to the number of hydrogen atoms.
Are Comets the Origin of Earth’s Oceans?|Matthew R. Francis|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
They found that there are roughly 1,900 hydrogen atoms for each deuterium atom in the water on Comet 67P.
Are Comets the Origin of Earth’s Oceans?|Matthew R. Francis|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
However, even that ginormous difference still shows about three times the amount of deuterium than we see on our planet.
Are Comets the Origin of Earth’s Oceans?|Matthew R. Francis|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
One chemical test involves measuring the relative amount of deuterium in water.
Are Comets the Origin of Earth’s Oceans?|Matthew R. Francis|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
For example, a common type of meteorite has similar mineral content to Earth, but a lot less deuterium.
Are Comets the Origin of Earth’s Oceans?|Matthew R. Francis|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Deuterons or alpha particles are obtained in a similar fashion using deuterium or helium gas in place of hydrogen.
LRL Accelerators|Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
"It's true that one of the possibilities in building a hydrogen bomb concerns deuterium," the scientist said.
The Caves of Fear|John Blaine
Well, heavy water is made of one atom of oxygen plus two atoms of deuterium, which is the first isotope of hydrogen.
The Caves of Fear|John Blaine
Then, for a considerably higher price, he would undertake to collect a sample of the deuterium they were using.
The Caves of Fear|John Blaine

British Dictionary definitions for deuterium

deuterium

/ (djuːˈtɪərɪəm) /

noun

a stable isotope of hydrogen, occurring in natural hydrogen (156 parts per million) and in heavy water: used as a tracer in chemistry and biology. Symbol: D or ²H; atomic no: 1; atomic wt: 2.014; boiling pt: –249.7°C

Word Origin for deuterium

C20: New Latin; see deutero-, -ium; from the fact that it is the second heaviest hydrogen isotope

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

Scientific definitions for deuterium

deuterium

[ dōō-tîr′ē-əm ]

An isotope of hydrogen whose nucleus has one proton and one neutron and whose atomic mass is 2. Deuterium is used widely as a tracer for analyzing chemical reactions, and it combines with oxygen to form heavy water. Also called heavy hydrogen See Note at heavy water.