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photon.

The quantum of light and other electromagnetic energy, regarded as a discrete particle having zero rest mass, no electric charge, and an indefinitely long lifetime. It is a gauge boson.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈfəʊtɒn/
  1. The quantum of light and other electromagnetic energy, regarded as a discrete particle having zero rest mass, no electric charge, and an indefinitely long lifetime. It is a gauge boson.

    particle
Where this word comes from

From photo- + -on. Coined by American physicist Leonard Troland in 1916 as a unit of light hitting the retina, and later popularized in a more modern sense by Gilbert N. Lewis, with the term gaining acceptance in the physics community by the late 1920s.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.