polarity
[pəˈlɛɹɪɾi] noun
Forms polarities
- noun The separation, alignment or orientation of something into two opposed poles. “The debate revealed the sharp polarity of opinion.”
- noun Either of the two extremes of such attributes.
- noun (chemistry) The dipole-dipole intermolecular forces between the slightly positively-charged end of one molecule to the negative end of another or the same molecule. ᵂᵖ
- noun (embryology) The division of an embryo into an animal pole and a vegetal pole within a blastula. ᵂᵖ
- noun (microbiology) Spatial differences in shape, structure, and function within a cell. ᵂᵖ
- noun (electricity) A measure of the electrical potential at the ends of a circuit. ᵂᵖ “positive and negative polarity”
- noun (physics) The direction of a wave's amplitude or its being in phase or antiphase.
- noun (grammar) The grammatical category of the affirmative and the negative. ᵂᵖ
Synonyms
Etymology
Cf. F. polarité.
Webster’s 1913
- noun That quality or condition of a body in virtue of which it exhibits opposite, or contrasted, properties or powers, in opposite, or contrasted, parts or directions; or a condition giving rise to a contrast of properties corresponding to a contrast of positions, as, for example, attraction and repulsion in the opposite parts of a magnet, the dissimilar phenomena corresponding to the different sides of a polarized ray of light, etc.
- noun A property of the conic sections by virtue of which a given point determines a corresponding right line and a given right line determines a corresponding point. See Polar, n.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “polarity”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details