Word.ws English Dictionary

diatoms

diatoms is the plural of diatom.

Meaning of diatom

Noun (1)

diatom (plural diatoms)

  1. Any of a group of minute unicellular algae having a siliceous covering of great delicacy, now categorized as class Diatomophyceae or division Bacillariophyta.
    • Diatoms are enclosed in two shells that fit together like a pillbox.1967, George K. Reid, edited by Herbert S. Zim and George S. Fichter, Pond Life, New York: Golden Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 31

Noun (2)

diatom (plural diatoms)

  1. A molecule composed of two atoms of the same element; a homonuclear diatomic molecule.
    • We show here, through a systematic study of the covalent chemical bond covering the entire periodic system, that the maximum bond multiplicity is six. The maximum value is reached by the tungsten diatom, W₂. No other pair of atoms in the periodic system (atomic numbers smaller than about 100)...2007, Björn O. Roos, Antonio C. Borin, Laura Gagliardi, “Reaching the Maximum Multiplicity of the Covalent Chemical Bond”, in Angewandte Chemie, volume 46, number 9, →DOI, archived from the original...

Questions about diatoms

What is diatoms the plural of?
Diatoms is the plural of diatom.

Words near diatoms in the dictionary

  1. diatomivorous
  2. diatomology
  3. diatomophile
  4. diatomophiles
  5. diatomous
  6. diatoms
  7. diatomyid
  8. diatomyids
  9. diatonic
  10. diatonic button accordion
  11. diatonic scale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: diatoms (page history and authors); diatom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “diatoms.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/diatoms. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.