muon

noun

mu·​on ˈmyü-ˌän How to pronounce muon (audio)
: an unstable lepton that is common in the cosmic radiation near the earth's surface, has a mass about 207 times the mass of the electron, and exists in negative and positive forms
muonic adjective

Examples of muon in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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The facility will produce a lot of tau particles and charm quarks, partly to study whether taus ever shape-shift into muons or electrons. Quanta Magazine, 26 Jan. 2026 In 2017, while a graduate student at MIT, Axani developed CosmicWatch with the intention of building a small, low-power muon detector. Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 8 Jan. 2026 Cosmic rays batter Earth's atmosphere constantly, interacting with molecules of air and producing showers of exotic particles such as muons, high energy neutrons and positrons. Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, 3 Dec. 2025 Combine that with new predictions by the related Muon g-2 Theory Initiative using a new means of calculating the muon's magnetic moment, and the discrepancy between theoretical prediction and experiment narrows even further. ArsTechnica, 30 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for muon

Word History

Etymology

contraction of earlier mu-meson, from mu

First Known Use

1951, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of muon was in 1951

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Cite this Entry

“Muon.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/muon. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.

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