atom

英 ['?t?m] 美['?t?m]

近義詞monad

CET4TEM4考研TOEFLCET6中低頻詞核心詞匯

復數:?atoms;

1、a- "not" + tom-.
2、字面含義：uncut, indivisible. => indivisible particle.
3、最初，人們認為原子就是宇宙中不可分割的最小微粒，因此就給它取名為“atom”了，當然后來證明這種認為是錯誤的。

atom 原子

前綴a-, 不，非。詞根tom, 切，見anatomy. 因古代哲學觀念認為原子是最小的不可切分單位而得名。

atom: atom: [16] Etymologically, atom means ‘not cut, indivisible’. Greek átomos ‘that which cannot be divided up any further’ was formed from the negative prefix a- ‘not’ and the base *tom- ‘cut’ (source also of English anatomy and tome), and was applied in the Middle Ages not just to the smallest imaginable particle of matter, but also to the smallest imaginable division of time; an hour contained 22,560 atoms.

Its use by classical writers on physics and philosophy, such as Democritus and Epicurus, was sustained by medieval philosophers, and the word was ready and waiting for 19th-century chemists when they came to describe and name the smallest unit of an element, composed of a nucleus surrounded by electrons.
=> anatomy, tome
atom (n.): late 15c., as a hypothetical indivisible body, the building block of the universe, from Latin atomus (especially in Lucretius) "indivisible particle," from Greek atomos "uncut, unhewn; indivisible," from a- "not" + tomos "a cutting," from temnein "to cut" (see tome). An ancient term of philosophical speculation (in Leucippus, Democritus), revived 1805 by British chemist John Dalton. In late classical and medieval use also a unit of time, 22,560 to the hour. Atom bomb is from 1945 as both a noun and a verb; compare atomic.

1. He patented the idea that the atom could be split.: 他獲得了“原子可以再分”這一概念的專利權。

3. A molecule of water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.: 水分子由兩個氫原子和一個氧原子構成。

5. For many years the atom was believed to be indivisible.: 在過去有很多年原子一直被認為是不可分割的.