ph
noun
Forms pHs
- noun (chemistry) Measure of the acidity (low pH) or basicity (high pH) of an aqueous solution, equal to the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions in molars.
Synonyms
Etymology
Originally introduced in 1909 by S. P. L. Sørensen, using the notation p_(H⁺) for what he called the “hydrogen ion exponent” (Wasserstoffionenexponent) of a solution. He may have chosen the symbol p arbitrarily; another suggestion is that it either an abbreviation of French puissance, German Potenz, Danish potens (“power”) or English potential. The H is the international chemical symbol for the element hydrogen.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “ph”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details