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hadron

American

[had-ron] / ˈhæd rɒn /

noun

Physics.

any elementary particle that is subject to the strong interaction. Hadrons are subdivided into baryons and mesons.

hadron British

/ ˈhædrɒn /

noun

any elementary particle capable of taking part in a strong nuclear interaction and therefore excluding leptons and photons

"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

hadron Scientific

/ hăd′rŏn′ /

Any of a class of subatomic particles composed of a combination of two or more quarks or antiquarks. Quarks (and antiquarks) of different colors are held together in hadrons by the strong nuclear force. Hadrons include both baryons (composed of three quarks or three antiquarks) and mesons (composed of a quark and an antiquark). The combination of quark colors in a hadron must be neutral, for example, red and antired (as in a pion) or red, blue, and green (as in a proton).
Compare baryon lepton

Other Word Forms

hadronic

adjective

Etymology

Origin of hadron

1962; < Greek hadr ( ós ) thick, bulky + -on ¹

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:

hadron

Hadrons containing a charm quark and its antimatter partner, an anti-charm quark, occupy a region of the hadron spectrum with similar masses known as charmonium.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026

To reach higher energies, physicists usually build bigger, more powerful hadron colliders that smash protons into either protons or antiprotons.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 27, 2024

Lambda particles are baryons, which means they’re a type of hadron made of three quarks: one up quark, one down quark and one strange quark.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 27, 2023

There is a lot riding on the results the researchers get over next few years because Cern will soon be putting forward proposals for an even larger hadron collider.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2022

Although quarks have never been directly observed, several predictions of the quark model were quickly confirmed, and their properties explain all known hadron characteristics.

From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023