droplet
Americannoun
-
droplets
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of droplet
Explanation
A tiny bit of dripping liquid is a droplet. It's so relaxing to take a slow walk in the misty rain, listening to water droplets fall on your umbrella. A droplet is a smaller version of a drop, which you can tell from the diminutive suffix -let, "smaller" (think booklet and piglet). If you're perspiring lightly on a hot day, you'll have droplets of sweat on your forehead, and if you accidentally turn on the spray attachment in the kitchen sink, you should dry those water droplets on the counter. Don't worry too much, though — the main thing to know about droplets is that they're tiny.
Vocabulary lists containing droplet
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:
"Essentially, all of this happens because there is a physical relation between the size of a droplet and the size of ice crystals in the clouds and the frequency spectrum," she pointed out.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
"The charge a droplet acquires as it slides depends heavily on the specific surface -- we measured differences of up to a factor of ten," explains Zhongyuan Ni, the study's first author.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
In other words, a droplet can pick up electrical charge while moving across a surface.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
Researchers from China, the US, and Israel estimated quasi-steady-state supersaturation using measurements of updraft speeds and cloud droplet size distributions.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
Somehow, a single droplet spattered the lens of my glasses.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Plague is a bacterial disease that can occur in several forms, including pneumonic plague, the most contagious type, which can spread through respiratory droplets.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Respiratory droplets carrying the Yersinia bacteria are released through coughing or sneezing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Respiratory droplets containing Yersinia pestis are heavy and drop to surfaces quickly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Pneumonic plague is also highly contagious and can spread from person to person via air droplets.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
Will looked around for the angel and saw his shape outlined in droplets of mist in the late afternoon light.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
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.
