sodium
noun
Simple meaning
The chemical element with an atomic number of 11 and atomic weight of 22.990.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sohdeeuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsoʊdiəm
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
The chemical element (symbol Na) with an atomic number of 11 and atomic weight of 22.990. It is a soft, waxy, silvery, reactive alkali metal that is never found unbound in nature.
attributive
Employing sodium.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The chemical element (symbol Na) with an atomic number of 11 and atomic weight of 22.990. It is a soft, waxy, silvery, reactive alkali metal that is never found unbound in nature.
Used this way, sodium 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.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- 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.
A white crystalline salt used as a food preservative and antiseptic.
A white soluble compound (NaHCO3) used in effervescent drinks and in baking powders and as an antacid.
A red-orange salt used as a mordant.
A sodium salt of carbonic acid.
A gummy substance that is a sodium salt of carboxymethyl cellulose.
A colorless salt (NaClO3) used as a weed killer and an antiseptic.
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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.