Standard Lemma guide

debye

name · noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /dəˈbaɪ/
  • rhymes with -aɪ

1

name

Meaning 1

A surname.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

The CGS unit of electric dipole moment, defined as 1 D = 10−18 statcoulomb-centimetre and computable from the SI unit coulomb-metre by multiplying by the factor 3.33564 × 10−30.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: natural-sciences, physical-sciences, physics

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: Debye unit

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Named after Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist Peter Debye.

Across languages

Translations

4 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: debye — the CGS unit of electric dipole moment
  • French: debye — the CGS unit of electric dipole moment
  • Polish: debaj — the CGS unit of electric dipole moment
  • Romanian: debye — the CGS unit of electric dipole moment