![]() Space Station), both granite and pumice are weightless, so the term "light" is really just our layperson's way of comparing the mass of different objects.Ĭompare a piece of granite with a piece of pumice: apart from being "light", the latter is porous.Ĭompare the Moon with a white dwarf star (both are about the same size, but the white dwarf has roughly the same mass as the Sun): the Moon is less massive. Synonyms formalise indorse validate sign formalize Rhymes with Ratify beatify Sentences with ratify 1. Note that density (mass per unit volume) is not the same as weight or heaviness: in an inertial environment (e.g. rætfa approve and express assent, responsibility, or obligation. ![]() Some different examples might be useful…Ĭompare the air at sea level with the air at the top of Everest: the latter, being less dense, is rarified.Ĭompare a party balloon filled with water and a party balloon filled with helium: water is denser than helium, so the helium balloon is light. This might be making it harder to see what an appropriate antonym of "dense" might be. This question asks for a word "describing something that has a large volume, but not a lot of mass" - yet gives an example of two small dense objects (bowling balls) with relatively modest variation in weight. A thin, flexible layer of tissue that covers, lines, separates, or connects cells or parts of an organism. Rarefy verb - Lessen the density or solidity of. What is pliable layer A thin, soft, pliable sheet or layer, especially of animal or vegetable tissue, serving as a covering or lining, as for an organ or cell. It quite possible that you will get a odd look or be misunderstood if you ask for a "rare bowling ball". Rarefy and Rarify are synonymous, and they have mutual synonyms. Now the caveat to all this, is that the usage of word this way in now rare itself (pun intended). This is because typically when we think of "dense" we think of "heavy", but in the pure physical world this in not the case as weight is subjective, while (as you mentioned) mass and volume are not. So, rare does seem to be used for "objects of low(er) density" in the physics sense of the word. Rare: marked by wide separation of component particles thin (e.g. The OED notes the word’s meaning as “pposed to dense,” and provides the following example (from around 1420), among others: The londis fatte, or lene, or thicke, or rare.Īlso, a check of current dictionary definitions gives us this one from Merriam-Webster: In fact, the earliest meaning of rare in English was precisely this one. Until the mid-19th century, the word was rare. Once upon a time, though, dense had an opposite. Like compression, which can travel in waves, rarefaction waves also. A historical word to mean the opposite of dense was rare, as stated in the following taken from an article in DON'T LOOK NOW Rarefy Rarefaction is the reduction of an items density, the opposite of compression.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |