11 Trending Words of 2014

electric charge

noun, Physics.
Also called charge, electricity. Unabridged
Cite This Source
Examples from the web for electric charge
  • They put dynamite in each, put a sandbag on each charge to direct the blast downward, and detonated it with an electric charge.
  • For one thing, electrons have an electric charge and photons do not.
  • When voltage is applied, an electric charge builds up on each plate.
  • When the shutter opens on a digital camera, an image is projected onto the sensor, which converts light into an electric charge.
  • The basic idea is to get two spheres and put some electric charge on them.
  • Since both the protons have electric charge, there is an electric interaction between them.
  • The faraday is a unit of electric charge that can electrolytically deposit one mole of an element or univalent ion.
  • Another big arena for wearables is electrophoresis, in which molecules move when pulsed with an electric charge.
  • If one of the ribbons in the plait is twisted, it gives the resulting particle an electric charge.
British Dictionary definitions for electric charge

electric charge

another name for charge (sense 25)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
Cite This Source
electric charge in Science
electric charge  
A form of charge, designated positive, negative, or zero, found on the elementary particles that make up all known matter. Particles with electric charge interact with each other through the electromagnetic force, creating electric fields, and when they are in motion, magnetic fields. The electric fields tend to result in a repulsive force between particles with charges of the same sign, and an attractive force between charges of opposite sign. The electron is defined to have an electric charge of -1; the protons in an atomic nucleus have charge of +1, and the neutrons have charge of 0.

Our Living Language  : Electric charge is a basic property of elementary particles of matter. The protons in an atom, for example, have a positive charge, the electrons have a negative charge, and the neutrons have zero charge. In an ordinary atom, the number of protons equals the number of electrons, so the atom normally has no net electric charge. An atom becomes negatively charged if it gains extra electrons, and it becomes positively charged if it loses electrons; atoms with net charge are called ions. Every charged particle is surrounded by an electric field, the area in which the charge exerts a force. Particles with nonzero electric charge interact with each other by exchanging photons, the carriers of the electromagnetic force. The strength and direction of the force charged particles exert on each other depends on the product of their charges: they attract each other if the product of their charges is negative and repel each other if the product is positive. Thus two electrons, each with charge -1, will repel each other, since -1 × -1 = +1, a positive number. Static electricity consists of charged particles at rest, while electric current consists of moving charged particles, especially electrons or ions.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Cite This Source

Word of the Day

Difficulty index for electric charge

Few English speakers likely know this word

Word Value for electric

Scrabble Words With Friends