neutrino
any of the massless or nearly massless electrically neutral leptons. There is a distinct kind of neutrino associated with each of the massive leptons.
Origin of neutrino
1- Compare antineutrino, lepton2, conservation of lepton number.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use neutrino in a sentence
Still, when it comes to neutrinos, the stakes are exhilarating: Why does the sun shine?
We encounter the bomb, exploding supernovas, and a giant cube designed to catch neutrinos in the wilds of Antarctica.
Additionally, the purported finding that neutrinos traveled faster than the speed of light was later ruled a miscalculation.
For a moment they saw with a spectrum that reached from the star-wide waves of novas to the micro-micron skittering of neutrinos.
Captives of the Flame | Samuel R. Delany
British Dictionary definitions for neutrino
/ (njuːˈtriːnəʊ) /
physics a stable leptonic neutral elementary particle with very small or possibly zero rest mass and spin 1/2 that travels at the speed of light. Three types exist, associated with the electron, the muon, and the tau particle
Origin of neutrino
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for neutrino
[ nōō-trē′nō ]
Any of three electrically neutral subatomic particles with extremely low mass. These include the electron-neutrino, the muon-neutrino, and the tau-neutrino.♦ The study of neutrinos that come to the earth as cosmic rays suggests that neutrinos can transform into each other in a process called neutrino oscillation. For this phenomenon to be theoretically possible, the three neutrinos must have distinct masses; for this reason, many scientists believe that they have mass. See Table at subatomic particle.
a closer look
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for neutrino
[ (nooh-tree-noh) ]
An electrically neutral particle that is often emitted in the process of radioactive decay of nuclei. Neutrinos are difficult to detect, and their existence was postulated twenty years before the first one was actually discovered in the laboratory. Millions of neutrinos produced by nuclear reactions in the sun pass through your body every second without disturbing any atoms.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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