monomer

UK/ˈmɒnəmə/US/ˈmɑnəmɚ/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly written

Other forms: monomers

A monomer is the single unit a polymer is built from. A monomer joins into long chains.

Thousands of them link end to end, which is what turns a gas into a plastic. The monomer behind polythene is ethene, and the name simply adds poly to it.

Definitions of monomer

1nounmonomerThe single unit a polymer is built from.C2
“The monomer is a gas and the finished polymer is a solid.”

monomer is a molecule.

Where it comes from

From mono- + -mer.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Chemistry & Elements

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monomer in the wild

Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers.
Polymer
Many symmetrical chemical species are described as dimers, even when the monomer is unknown or highly unstable.
Dimerization
Vinyl chloride monomer is among the top twenty largest petrochemicals (petroleum-derived chemicals) in world production.
Vinyl chloride
In polymer chemistry, emulsion polymerization is a type of radical polymerization that usually starts with an emulsion incorporating water, monomers, and surfactants.
Emulsion polymerization
The most common type of emulsion polymerization is an oil-in-water emulsion, in which droplets of monomer (the oil) are emulsified (with surfactants) in a continuous phase of water.
Emulsion polymerization

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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