Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

-on

Syllabification: (-on)
Definition of -on

suffix

Physics, Biochemistry, & Chemistry
  • forming nouns:
  • 1denoting subatomic particles or quanta:neutron photon
  • 2denoting molecular units:codon
  • 3denoting substances:interferon

Origin:

-on (sense 1) originally in electron, from ion, influenced (as in -on (sense 2)) by Greek ōn 'being'; -on (sense 3) is on the pattern of words such as cotton or from German -on

-on in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of -on in the British & World English dictionary