: a gray-white heavy high-melting ductile hard polyvalent metallic element that resembles chromium and molybdenum in many of its properties and is used especially in carbide materials and electrical components (such as lamp filaments) and in hardening alloys (such as steel) see Chemical Elements Table
Examples of tungsten in a Sentence
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While tungsten has historically been measured by its industrial performance and price, market logic has now been overtaken by security logic.
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Robert Ginsburg, Forbes.com, 25 Aug. 2025
Your authors grew up in a time when school-children learned about the problems of an ozone hole, acid rain, and depleted tungsten supplies, not carbon emissions.
—Literary Hub, 8 Aug. 2025
But over the years, ancient isotopic signatures of tungsten and hydrogen (the focus of a paper published just this year) have also suggested that the core and mantle are somehow mixing.
—Quanta Magazine, 4 Aug. 2025
Courtesy of Fairphone Fairphone says the new device is made with more than 50 percent fair and recycled materials, including cobalt sourced through the Fair Cobalt Alliance, fair gold, silver, and tungsten, and recycled aluminum and rare earth metals.
—Julian Chokkattu, Wired News, 28 June 2025
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Robert Ginsburg, Forbes.com, 25 Aug. 2025
Your authors grew up in a time when school-children learned about the problems of an ozone hole, acid rain, and depleted tungsten supplies, not carbon emissions.
—Literary Hub, 8 Aug. 2025
But over the years, ancient isotopic signatures of tungsten and hydrogen (the focus of a paper published just this year) have also suggested that the core and mantle are somehow mixing.
—Quanta Magazine, 4 Aug. 2025
Courtesy of Fairphone Fairphone says the new device is made with more than 50 percent fair and recycled materials, including cobalt sourced through the Fair Cobalt Alliance, fair gold, silver, and tungsten, and recycled aluminum and rare earth metals.
—Julian Chokkattu, Wired News, 28 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for tungsten
Cite this Entry
“Tungsten.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tungsten. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
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Etymology
from Swedish tungsten, literally "heavy stone," from tung "heavy" and sten "stone"
Medical Definition
tungsten
noun
tung·sten
ˈtəŋ-stən 
: a gray-white heavy high-melting ductile hard polyvalent metallic element that resembles chromium and molybdenum in many of its properties and is used especially for electrical purposes and in hardening alloys (as steel)
—symbol W
called also wolfram
see Chemical Elements TableLove words? Need even more definitions?
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