conduction
noun
Simple meaning
The transmission of heat or electricity or sound.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhnduhkshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənˈdʌkʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
physics
The transmission of heat or electricity or sound
“Heat travels through the metal handle by conduction, making it hot.”
physics
The conveying of heat or electricity through material.
The act of leading or guiding.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The transmission of heat or electricity or sound
Used this way, conduction is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
“Heat travels through the metal handle by conduction, making it hot.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Anesthesia of an area supplied by a nerve.
Anesthesia of an area supplied by a nerve.
Aphasia in which the lesion is assumed to be in the association tracts connecting the various language centers in the brain.
Hearing loss due to problems with the bones of the middle ear.
The passage of electricity through a conductor.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- conductivitynoun
- conductiveadjective
- ecgnoun
- semiconductornoun
- diodenoun
- nervesnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: transmission of heat or electricity or sound
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.