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silicon

UK/ˈsɪlɪkən/US/ˈsɪlɪkən/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,484 of 15,258leans written

Silicon is the element sand and computer chips are made from. A silicon chip, silicon wafer, Silicon Valley.

It is the second most abundant element in the earth's crust after oxygen, and chips are made from wafers grown as single crystals of it. Note silicone with an e, which is a rubbery synthetic material — mixing the two up is a very common error.

Enricoros at English Wikipedia · Public domain

Definitions of silicon

  1. 1nounsiliconThe element that sand and computer chips are made from.B2+

    “Most solar panels use cells made of silicon to turn sunlight into electricity.”

silicon is an element.

Where it comes from

Coined from Latin silex, flint, with the -on ending taken from carbon, which it resembles chemically.

  1. Latin

    silex — flint, silica

  2. English, today

    silicon

From silicium + -on. coined by Q902546 as a modification of the earlier name silicium, from the stem of Latin silex (“flint, silica”) + -on from carbon.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Chemistry & Elements

Practise this word

silicon in the wild

  • The element silicon has been much discussed as a hypothetical alternative to carbon.

    Hypothetical types of biochemistry

  • Most silicon is used commercially without being separated, often with very little processing of the natural minerals.

    Silicon

  • Silicon compounds such as silicon carbide are used as abrasives and components of high-strength ceramics.

    Silicon

  • When a star has completed the silicon-burning phase, no further fusion is possible.

    Silicon-burning process

  • The silicon-burning process is extremely brief: for a 25-solar mass star, the period lasts 5 days, compared to a prior 10 million years of hydrogen burning.

    Silicon-burning process

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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.

Related words

the silex family

siliconsilicone

silicon — used about once every 1,963 pages · #6,484 · point at the bar for the others