tungsten
noun
Simple meaning
A heavy grey-white metallic element.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tuhngstuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʌŋstən
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
A heavy grey-white metallic element; the pure form is used mainly in electrical applications; it is found in several ores including wolframite and scheelite
A rare metallic chemical element (symbol W, from Latin wolframium) with an atomic number of 74.
A light bulb containing tungsten.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A heavy grey-white metallic element; the pure form is used mainly in electrical applications; it is found in several ores including wolframite and scheelite
Used this way, tungsten 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 tungsten
- “The light bulb filament is often made of tungsten.”noun
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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 very hard heat-resistant steel containing tungsten.
A steel alloy made with chromium and tungsten.
A mineral consisting of iron and manganese tungstate in crystalline form.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: heavy grey-white metallic element
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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.