muon

noun

mu·​on ˈmyü-ˌän 

: 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

myü-ˈä-nik 

adjective

Examples of muon in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Then came the surprising part The team used muon spin relaxation to look for extremely weak magnetic fields inside the material. — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026

The physicists used that data to reconstruct the angles at which electrons and muons were emitted to infer the spins of the original Z bosons that preceded them. — ArsTechnica, 2 Oct. 2026

In 2014, a collaboration among researchers in Budapest, Hungary; Marseille, France; and Wuppertal, Germany — the BMW group — started on a project to use lattice QCD to calculate the muon g-factor. — Matt Von Hippel, Quanta Magazine, 29 July 2026

Word History

Etymology

contraction of earlier mu-meson, from mu

First Known Use

1951, in the meaning defined above