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lithium

noun

Simple meaning

A soft silver-white univalent element of the alkali metal group.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

litheeuhm

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈlɪθiəm

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A soft silver-white univalent element of the alkali metal group; the lightest metal known; occurs in several minerals

  2. uncountable

    The simplest alkali metal, the lightest solid element, and the third lightest chemical element (symbol Li) with an atomic number of 3 and atomic weight of 6.94. It is a soft, silvery metal.

  3. countable

    A lithium battery.

  4. countable

    A single atom of this element.

  5. An inactive village in Perry County, Missouri.

  6. pharmacologyuncountable

    Lithium carbonate or other preparations of lithium metal used as a mood stabiliser to treat manic depression and bipolar disorders.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Varies by meaning

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A soft silver-white univalent element of the alkali metal group; the lightest metal known; occurs in several minerals

Used this way, lithium is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use lithium

  • “Lithium batteries are common in many electronic devices today.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Lithium

lithium carbonate

Soft / simplest

lithium aluminum

Single

lithium chloride

Other combinations

lithium fluoridelithium toxicitylithium hydroxidelithium treatmentlithium therapy

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • lithium carbonatenounCompound term

    A white powder (LiCO3) used in manufacturing glass and ceramics and as a drug.

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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.