Word.ws English Dictionary

dilithium

/daɪˈlɪθiəm/

dilithium noun: the diatomic molecule Li₂ found in the gas phase.

Noun

dilithium (uncountable)

  1. The diatomic molecule Li₂ found in the gas phase.
  2. (especially, in-compounds) Two lithium atoms in a molecule.
  3. A fictional crystalline mineral in the Star Trek franchise, described as an essential component of anti-matter energy generation systems.
    • “Mr. Mayor, we're back from the dilithium crystal mine.” “What a haul! This will power the colony for months!”2016 May 2, Jordan Blum & Parker Deay, “The Nova Centauris-burgh Board of Tourism Presents: American Dad” (1:11 from the start), in American Dad!, season 13, episode 14
    • Fifty years later and it seems like we should—I don’t know if dilithium crystals are out there—but, you know, we should be getting some breakthroughs.2016 October, Scott Dadich, quoting Barack Obama, “Barack Obama Talks AI, Robo Cars, and the Future of the World”, in Wired, →ISSN

Origin of dilithium

From di- + lithium.

Questions about dilithium

What does dilithium mean?
Dilithium means the diatomic molecule Li₂ found in the gas phase.
What part of speech is dilithium?
Dilithium is a noun.
How do you pronounce dilithium?
Dilithium is pronounced /daɪˈlɪθiəm/.

Words near dilithium in the dictionary

  1. dilinoleoylphosphatidylcholine
  2. dilipopeptide
  3. dilipopeptides
  4. dilisk
  5. dilithio-
  6. dilithium
  7. Dilkon
  8. Dilkoon
  9. dill
  10. dill pickle
  11. dill water

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dilithium (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dilithium.wav.

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