Antimatter

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/

Definitions

1. Matter composed of particles that have opposite electrical charges and properties compared to ordinary matter, which annihilates in a burst of energy when it contacts regular matter
2. A form of substance made up of particles with reversed charges and properties from normal matter, producing massive energy release upon collision with ordinary matter
3. Material consisting of antiparticles that possess opposite characteristics to standard matter and converts entirely into radiation when meeting regular matter

Etymology: Arthur Schuster, a British physicist, coined "antimatter" in 1898, but not as a scientific proposal. He wrote it into a jocular article in the journal Nature called "Potential Matter—A Holiday Dream", imagining matter that would resist gravity rather than be pulled by it. The joke was a playful thought experiment, and the word sat largely unused in serious physics for decades. The word is a plain compound: "anti-", from Greek "anti" meaning "against" or "opposite," joined to "matter," which came into English from Old French and ultimately from Latin "materia." Taken together, it names matter that is the opposite of the ordinary kind. Its modern sense only arrived in the 1940s, when physicists took up the idea seriously. The meaning shifted from a whimsical notion of anti-gravity matter to a concrete class of particles with reversed charges, which annihilate on contact with ordinary matter and release energy.