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  

/ 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 ² British  

suffix

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

   creation

   objection

---

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

After one electron interacts with the trapped ion, another electron can pass through and become entangled with the quantum computer as well.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026

"This can, for example, create quantum entanglement between the electron and the quantum computer. The electron and the ion then share a joint quantum state."

From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026

"Our ion acts like a tiny sensor that we can use to feel out the structure of the laser light," Leindecker explains.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026

The company said it will partner with GlobalFoundries to fabricate next-generation ion traps and other electronics, and with Monarch Quantum to manufacture integrated lasers and optical components required for its systems.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 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 need for such high levels of reliability can stress the capabilities of AI architectures and humans alike, according to computer scientist and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

"What revolutionized DNA sequencing wasn't any change in the underlying chemistry. That's remained fundamentally the same," says Brian T. Chait, Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry and Gaseous Ion Chemistry at Rockefeller.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2026

Games will also air on Ion and USA Network.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026

Raducanu's father, Ion, is from Bucharest and an exhausted but thrilled Raducanu briefly addressed the crowd in Romanian after her victory.

From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2026

He told her that his name was Ion, but that he did not know where he had come from.

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

The team proposes doing this by linking the electrons to a quantum computer built around trapped ions.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026

The study, "Imaging and mechanism of DNA-DNA recognition mediated by divalent ions," was published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026

“I must have had a metal cup on. It glitched the ions in the air.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026

Its open channels help materials involved in transporting ions spread more uniformly through the electrode.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

We had to face the bleak situation that the world authority on the structural chemistry of ions was Linus Pauling himself.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson