Showing results for "ion"

Jump To:

• ion
  ion

  noun

  an electrically charged atom or group of atoms formed by the loss or gain of one or more electrons, as a cation positive ion, which is created by electron loss and is attracted to the cathode in electrolysis, or as an anion negative ion, which is created by an electron gain and is attracted to the anode. The valence of an ion is equal to the number of electrons lost or gained and is indicated by a plus sign for cations and a minus sign for anions, thus: Na + , Cl−, Ca ++ , S = .
• Ion
  Ion

  noun

  the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians: a son of Apollo and Creusa who is abandoned by his mother but returns to become an attendant in Apollo's temple at Delphi.
• -ion
  -ion

  a suffix, appearing in words of Latin origin, denoting action or condition, used in Latin and in English to form nouns from stems of Latin adjectives (communion; union ), verbs (legion; opinion ), and especially past participles (allusion; creation; fusion; notion; torsion ).
• Ion.
  Ion.

  abbreviation

  Ionic.

SEE ALSO:

Slang dictionary results for ion.

ion

¹ American  

[ahy-uhn, ahy-on] / ˈaɪ ən, ˈaɪ ɒn /

noun

Physics, Chemistry.

• ions
  plural

1. an electrically charged atom or group of atoms formed by the loss or gain of one or more electrons, as a cation positive ion, which is created by electron loss and is attracted to the cathode in electrolysis, or as an anion negative ion, which is created by an electron gain and is attracted to the anode. The valence of an ion is equal to the number of electrons lost or gained and is indicated by a plus sign for cations and a minus sign for anions, thus: Na + , Cl−, Ca ++ , S = .

2. one of the electrically charged particles formed in a gas by electric discharge or the like.

---

Ion ² American  

[ahy-on] / ˈaɪ ɒn /

noun

1. Classical Mythology. the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians: a son of Apollo and Creusa who is abandoned by his mother but returns to become an attendant in Apollo's temple at Delphi.

2. (italics) a drama on this subject (415? b.c.) by Euripides.

---

-ion ³ American  

1. a suffix, appearing in words of Latin origin, denoting action or condition, used in Latin and in English to form nouns from stems of Latin adjectives (communion; union ), verbs (legion; opinion ), and especially past participles (allusion; creation; fusion; notion; torsion ).

---

Ion. ⁴ American  

abbreviation

1. Ionic.

---

-ion ¹ British  

suffix

1. indicating an action, process, or state Compare -ation -tion

   creation

   objection

---

ion ² British  

/ ˈaɪən, -ɒn /

noun

1. an electrically charged atom or group of atoms formed by the loss or gain of one or more electrons See also cation anion

---

ion Scientific  

/ ī′ən,ī′ŏn′ /

1. An atom or a group of atoms that has an electric charge. Positive ions, or cations, are formed by the loss of electrons; negative ions, or anions, are formed by the gain of electrons.

---

ion Cultural  

1. An atom that has either lost or gained one or more electrons, so that it has an electrical charge. Ions can be either positively or negatively charged.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ions
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of ion¹

< Greek ión going, neuter present participle of iénai to go; term introduced by Michael Faraday in 1834

Origin of -ion³

< Latin -iōn- (stem of -iō ) suffix forming nouns, especially on past participle stems; replacing Middle English -ioun < Anglo-French < Latin -iōn-

---

Explanation

An ion is an atom or particle with a positive or negative electrical charge. Think of an ion as having a plus or minus sign. Ion is a word you are most likely to encounter in a physics or chemistry text. But you don’t have to be a chemist or physicist to understand the concept. If you had a neutral particle and you were able to remove or add an electron, then you would have an ion — a charged particle. Don't confuse the tiny ion with the similar word eon, which is an extremely long period of time.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ion Ion Ion. ions

The author’s own research involves measuring tiny electrical currents flowing through parts of our brain cells called ion channels.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were honored for their research into “light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2026

Instead of searching for quark and antiquark pairs after lead ion collisions, the researchers looked for events in which one quark traveled through the plasma in nearly the opposite direction from a "Z boson."

From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026

The choice of cathode material, or how the electrolyte – which separates cathode and anode – is formulated are key details influencing the performance and longevity of sodium ion batteries.

From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026

"Technically," she corrected, "the booster only took me into orbit. It was the nuclear-powered ion engine that took me to Mars."

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir

The group’s alleged leader, Constantin Ion, aka Piranha, was charged but not arrested.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026

"We are in a new era here, similar to 70-odd years ago," said Frank Nerling, a Jefferson Lab collaborator from Germany's GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and Goethe University Frankfurt.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026

Ion is tailored for procedures in the lung, typically to sample suspicious nodules or legions as part of a cancer diagnosis.

From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026

Games will also air on Ion and USA Network.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026

Ion found the jewels and looked from them to her.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

In the first place, the Portuguese, who discovered that island in 1506, and explored its coasts in the following years, could not have Ion. remained in ignorance of De Gonneville's voyage.

From The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 by Ernest Favenc

MOFs are built from positively charged metal ions surrounded by organic "linker" molecules.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 4, 2026

Their results suggest that the 2′-OH allows RNA to interact more strongly with magnesium ions.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026

Carefully controlled laser beams were then used to adjust how the ions interacted with one another.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

Metal ions help transfer energy from a star's radiation into surrounding material, pushing that material outward.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 24, 2026

What if he could force ions into a circular path, thereby passing them repeatedly across a single electrical gap?

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---