Word.ws English Dictionary

Richter scale

/ˈɹɪkt.ɚ skeɪl/

Richter scale proper noun: a logarithmic scale used to express the energy released by an earthquake, each increase of 1 representing a 31-fold increase in energy, and a 10-fold increase in the measured wave amplitude.

richter scale: a logarithmic scale used to express the energy released by an earthquake, each increase of 1...
Image: Jan Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

the Richter scale

  1. A logarithmic scale used to express the energy released by an earthquake, each increase of 1 representing a 31-fold increase in energy, and a 10-fold increase in the measured wave amplitude.
    • “The Richter scale is an old scale developed for California. It is only good for smaller quakes, and is not very good at differentiating the sizes of bigger shocks,” said McGuire.2025 March 28, Nicola Davis, quoting Bill McGuire, “What caused Myanmar and Thailand earthquake and how big was it?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Noun

Richter scale (plural Richter scales)

  1. A value on the Richter scale.
    • The students also faced and experienced earthquakes at various Richter scales.

Richter scale meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian

Richter scale in Tamil

ரிக்டெர் அளவீடு

Richter scale in Arabic

logarithmic scale
مِقْيَاس رِيخْتَر miqyās rīḵtar

Richter scale in Indonesian

logarithmic scale
skala Richter

Richter scale in Persian

logarithmic scale
مقیاس ریشتر meqyâs-e rišter

Forms of Richter scale

pluralRichter scales

Origin of Richter scale

Named after American seismologist Charles Richter (1900–1985), whose name derives from German Richter (“judge”).

Questions about Richter scale

What does Richter scale mean?
Richter scale means a logarithmic scale used to express the energy released by an earthquake, each increase of 1 representing a 31-fold increase in energy, and a 10-fold increase in the measured wave amplitude.
What is Richter scale in Tamil?
Richter scale in Tamil is ரிக்டெர் அளவீடு. See Richter scale meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is Richter scale?
Richter scale can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce Richter scale?
Richter scale is pronounced /ˈɹɪkt.ɚ skeɪl/ (US).

Words near Richter scale in the dictionary

  1. richsplained
  2. richsplaining
  3. richsplains
  4. Richtel
  5. Richter
  6. Richter scale
  7. Richter scales
  8. Richterian
  9. richterite
  10. richterites
  11. richteritic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Richter scale (page history and authors); richter scale (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: En-us-Richter scale.ogg.

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