Word.ws English Dictionary

meron

meron noun: either of the pair of entities that together make up an instanton.

Noun (1)

meron (plural merons)

  1. Either of the pair of entities that together make up an instanton.
    Synonyms:
    half-instanton

Noun (2)

meron (plural merons)

  1. A sclerite on the side of the thorax of an insect, above the coxae of the mid and hind legs.

Noun (3)

meron (plural merons)

  1. The unit of classification in meronomy.

Synonyms of meron

  • half-instanton

Forms of meron

pluralmerons

Origin of meron

From mero- (“part, portion”) + -on. Coined by American scientists Curtis G. Allan Jr., Roger Dashen, and David J. Gross, in 1977.

Back-formation from epimeron, ultimately from Ancient Greek μῆρος (mêros, “thigh”).

From meronomy, by analogy with taxon.

Questions about meron

What does meron mean?
Meron means either of the pair of entities that together make up an instanton.
What part of speech is meron?
Meron is a noun.
What is the plural of meron?
The plural of meron is merons.

Words near meron in the dictionary

  1. meromycolic
  2. meromycolic acid
  3. meromycolic acids
  4. meromyosin
  5. meromyosins
  6. meron
  7. meronic
  8. meronomies
  9. meronomy
  10. merons
  11. meront

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meron (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.

Last updated:

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