positronium

American

[poz-i-troh-nee-uhm] / ˌpɒz ɪˈtroʊ ni əm /

noun

Physics.

a short-lived atomic system consisting of a positron and an electron bound together.

positronium British

/ ˌpɒzɪˈtrəʊnɪəm /

noun

physics a short-lived entity consisting of a positron and an electron bound together. It decays by annihilation to produce two or three 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

Etymology

Origin of positronium

First recorded in 1945; positron + -ium; coined by Arthur E. Ruark (1899–1979), U.S. physicist

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:

positronium

To do this, the researchers first generated negatively charged positronium ions.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 28, 2026

Compared with earlier techniques, this method produces positronium beams with higher energies, reaching up to 3.3 keV.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 28, 2026

The team also investigated whether positronium would produce interference in the same way as a single particle like an electron.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 28, 2026

However, despite these advances, this phenomenon had not been directly observed in positronium.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 28, 2026

One of the first experiments frozen positronium could be used for is to see if its antimatter part follows Einstein's Theory of General Relativity in the same way as the matter part.

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2024

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