muon

See also: muón, múon, muôn, muốn, mướn, muộn, and mượn

English

Etymology

Contraction of the earlier term mu-meson; the particle has now been recategorised as a lepton. Coined by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1951 in his book Elementary Particles.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmjuːɒn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːɒn

Noun

muon (plural muons)

1. (physics) An unstable elementary particle in the lepton family, having similar properties to the electron but with a mass 207 times greater.
   • 1951, Enrico Fermi, Elementary Particles:

     The μ-meson of Powell (called here muon) is instead a disintegration product of the pion, only weakly linked to the nucleons and therefore of little importance in the explanation of nuclear forces.

   • 1955 March, CP Sargent, “Diffusion Cloud-Chamber Study of Very Slow Mesons”, in Physical Review:

     The spectrum of electrons arising from the decay of the negative mu meson has been determined. The muons are arrested in the gas of a high pressure hydrogen filled diffusion cloud chamber.

   • 2023 August 11, Nicola Davis, “Scientists may be on brink of discovering fifth force of nature”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     The data comes from experiments at the Fermilab US particle accelerator facility, which explored how subatomic particles called muons – similar to electrons but about 200 times heavier – move in a magnetic field.

Derived terms

• antimuon
• anti-muon
• dimuon
• muogenic
• muonic
• muonium
• muonless
• muon neutrino
• muononium
• smuon
• trimuon

Translations

an unstable elementary particle in the lepton family

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: մյուոն (myuon)
• Basque: muoi
• Bengali: মিউওন (miuōn)
• Catalan: muó (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: μ子 (zh) (miùzǐ), 緲子 / 缈子 (zh) (miǎozǐ), 渺子 (zh) (miǎozǐ)

• Dutch: muon (nl) n
• Esperanto: muono
• Finnish: myoni (fi)
• French: muon (fr) m
• Galician: muón (gl) m
• Georgian: მიუონი (miuoni)
• German: Myon (de) n
• Greek: μιόνιο (el) n (miónio)
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: müon
• Icelandic: mýeind f
• Ido: muono (io)
• Italian: muone (it) m
• Japanese: ミュー粒子 (myū ryūshi)
• Khmer: មុយាណូ (muy yea no)
• Korean: 뮤 입자 (myu ipja)
• Norwegian: myon n
• Persian: میون, میوآن (myu-ân)
• Polish: mion (pl) m
• Portuguese: muão m (Portugal), múon m (Brazil)
• Russian: мюо́н (ru) m (mjuón)
• Spanish: muon (es) m
• Swedish: myon (sv) c
• Tagalog: mu tungapik
• Thai: มิวออน
• Vietnamese: muon (vi)

Further reading

• muon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• moun

Dutch

Etymology

Contraction of mu-meson

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mu‧on

Noun

muon n (plural muonen, no diminutive)

1. (physics) muon

Esperanto

Noun

muon

1. accusative singular of muo

North Frisian

Alternative forms

• maan (Föhr-Amrum)
• man (Heligoland)
• moon (Mooring)
• Man (Sylt)

Etymology

From Old Frisian man, from Proto-West Germanic *mann, from Proto-Germanic *mann- (“man”), from Proto-Indo-European *mon- (“human, man”).

Noun

muon (Wiedingharde)

1. man (adult male human)
2. husband

Spanish

Alternative forms

• muón (pre-2010)

Etymology

Borrowed from English muon.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmwon/ [ˈmwõn]
  • Rhymes: -on
• IPA^(key): /muˈon/ [muˈõn]
  • Rhymes: -on
• Syllabification: muon

Noun

muon m (plural muones)

1. (physics) muon (elementary particle)

   Hypernyms: fermión, leptón, partícula elemental

See also

• leptons: electrón · muon · tau/tauón · neutrino (neutrino electrónico · neutrino muónico · neutrino tauónico) ^[edit]

Further reading

• “muon”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025