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hardness

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English hardness, hardnesse, from Old English heardnes, from heard + -nes, equivalent to hard +‎ -ness.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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hardness (countable and uncountable, plural hardnesses)

  1. The quality of being hard.
  2. An instance of this quality; hardship.
  3. (inorganic chemistry) The quantity of calcium carbonate dissolved in water, usually expressed in parts per million (ppm).
  4. The resistance to scratching, cutting, indentation or abrasion of a metal or other solid material.
  5. (physics) The penetrating ability of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays; generally, the shorter the wavelength, the harder and more penetrating the radiation.
  6. The measure of resistance to damage of a facility, equipment, installation, or telecommunications infrastructure when subjected to attack.
  7. (countable, engineering) A measure of how hard a material is.
    The hardness of the material was high.
    • 2024 August 6, Ricardo Treviño, “Self-Healing Concrete Help Buildings Seal Themselves”, in TecScience‎[1], archived from the original on 19 January 2025:
      “This material has a specific hardness and is chemically very stable. It forms naturally from calcium alone, but bacteria accelerate the transformation into calcium carbonate,” explains Alejandro Montesinos, head of the Decarbonization, Climate Change, and Circular Economy Research Group at Tec de Monterrey and a member of the Institute of Advanced Materials and Sustainable Manufacturing.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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Anagrams

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