Thouless

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name borne by a British-born theoretical physicist who shared the 2016 Nobel Prize for work on topological phases of matter
2. Used as the surname of a theoretical physicist from Britain honored in 2016 for research on exotic states of matter
3. The name of a British-born physicist recognized with the 2016 Nobel Prize for discoveries about topological states in materials

Etymology: "Thou" was once the intimate form of "you" in English, used for a close friend, a child, or God, while "you" served for polite address and plural. Adding the suffix "-less", meaning "without", produces "thouless", an adjective meaning roughly "lacking a thou" or "without an intimate form of address." The word is rare, and its meaning follows directly from its parts. Most people who meet the word, though, meet it as a surname. David J. Thouless, a Scottish-born physicist, shared the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on topological phases of matter. Physics terms such as the Thouless pump and the Thouless effect are named after him. They are not derived from the English adjective, so the physics usage is a separate word that happens to share its spelling.