Standard Lemma guide

molecule

noun · 4 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.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈmɒl.ɪ.kjuːl/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈmɒl.ə.kjuːl/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Atlantic-Canada, General-American: /ˈmɑ.lɪ.kjul/
  • Atlantic-Canada, General-American: /ˈmɑ.lə.kjul/
  • Canada, dialectal: /ˈmɒl.ɪ.kjul/ of the US
  • Canada, dialectal: /ˈmɒl.ə.kjul/ of the US
  • Australian: /ˈmɔl.ɪ.kjʉːl/
  • Australian: /ˈmɔl.ə.kjʉːl/
  • New-Zealand: /ˈmɒl.ə.kjʉːl/
  • New-Zealand: /ˈmɔ̟l.ə.kjʉːl/
  • India: /ˈmɔː.lɪk.ˈjuːl/
  • CMU ARPABET: M AA1 L AH0 K Y UW2 L Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

The smallest particle of a specific element or compound that retains the chemical properties of that element or compound; two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: chemistry, natural-sciences, physical-sciences

Examples

  • Hydrogen chloride is a diatomic molecule, consisting of a hydrogen atom and a chlorine atom.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A tiny amount.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: atom, particle, ace, thought, atomy, aught, bissel, bit, crumb, glimpse, dab, damn, dash, diddly, glint, dot, spatter, drop, dusting, fleck, glimmer, hint, flip, flyspeck, grain, halfpennyworth, inch, iota, jot, lick, mite, modicum, molecule, morceau, morsel, mote, ooch, ounce, pennyworth, piece, pinch, relish, scantling, semblance, scent, scintilla, scooch, scrap, scruple, shred, skerrick, skoosh, skosh, sliver, smattering, smidge, smidgen, smidget, smidgy, smitch, smithereen, soupçon, spark, speck, speckle, spot, sprinkle, sprinkling, strain, tad, tidbit, tidge, tinge, tittle, toddick, touch, trace, trifle, tuppence worth, vestige, whiff, whit

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

(nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: atom, particle, corpuscle, mote, speck

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: material, stuff

Narrower terms: grain, grinding, chylomicron, flyspeck, identification particle

4

noun

Meaning 4

(physics and chemistry) the simplest structural unit of an element or compound

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: unit, building block

Narrower terms: dipole molecule, protein molecule, coenzyme, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, EDTA, macromolecule, supermolecule

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin mōlēs Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Indo-European *-elós Proto-Italic *-elos Proto-Italic *-kelos Latin -cula New Latin moleculalbor. French moléculebor. English molecule Borrowed from French molécule, from New Latin molecula (“a molecule”), diminutive of Latin moles (“a mass”).

Across languages

Translations

116 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Afrikaans: molekuul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Albanian: molekulë — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Amharic: ሞለኪውል (moläkiwl) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Arabic: جُزَيْء (juzayʔ) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Aragonese: molecula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Armenian: մոլեկուլ (molekul) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Assamese: অণু (onu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Asturian: molécula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Azerbaijani: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Basque: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Belarusian: мале́кула (maljékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Bengali: অণু (onu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Bulgarian: моле́кула (molékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Burmese: မော်လီကျူး (mauli-kyu:) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Carpathian Rusyn: моле́кула (molékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Catalan: molècula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Chinese Cantonese: 分子 (fan6 zi2) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Chinese Mandarin: 分子 (fēnzǐ) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Czech: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Danish: molekyle — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Dutch: molecuul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Esperanto: molekulo — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Estonian: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Faroese: mýl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Finnish: molekyyli — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • French: molécule — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Friulian: molecule — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Galician: molécula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Georgian: მოლეკულა (moleḳula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • German: Molekül — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Greek: μόριο (mório) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Gujarati: અણુ (aṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Hebrew: מוֹלֵקוּלָה (molékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Hindi: अणु (aṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Hindi: व्यूहाणु (vyūhāṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Hungarian: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Icelandic: sameind — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Icelandic: mólekúl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Ido: molekulo — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Indonesian: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Irish: móilín — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Italian: molecola — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Japanese: 分子 (bunshi) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Javanese: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Kannada: ಅಣು (aṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Kazakh: молекула (molekula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Khmer: អណូ (ʼaʼnou) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Khmer: ម៉ូលេគុល (mouleikul) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Korean: 분자 (bunja) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Central Kurdish: گەرد (gerd) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Northern Kurdish: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Northern Kurdish: gerd — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Northern Kurdish: nûn — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Kyrgyz: молекула (molekula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Lao: ໂມເລກຸນ (mō lē kun) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Lao: ອະນຸ (ʼa nu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Latin: molecula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Latvian: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Lithuanian: molekulė — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Macedonian: молекула (molekula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Malagasy: môlekiola — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Malay: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Malayalam: തന്മാത്ര (tanmātra) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Manx: co-vreneen — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Marathi: रेणू (reṇū) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Mongolian: молекул (molekul) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Nepali: अणु (aṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Norman: molétchule — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Norwegian: molekyl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: molekyl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Occitan: molecula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Ossetian: молекулӕ (molekulæ) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Pali: aṇu — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Pashto: مالېکول (mālekúl) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Iranian Persian: مولِکول (molekul) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Iranian Persian: ذَرِّه (zarre) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Polish: cząsteczka — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Polish: molekuła — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Portuguese: molécula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Punjabi: ਅਣੂ (aṇū) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Romanian: moleculă — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Russian: моле́кула (molékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Sanskrit: घनाणु (ghanāṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Sanskrit: अणु (aṇu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Serbo-Croatian: молѐкула — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Serbo-Croatian: молѐкул — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Serbo-Croatian: molèkula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Serbo-Croatian: molèkul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Sinhalese: අණුව (aṇuwa) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Slovak: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Slovene: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Lower Sorbian: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Upper Sorbian: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Spanish: molécula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Sundanese: molekul — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Swahili: molekuli — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Swedish: molekyl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Tagalog: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Tajik: молекула (molekula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Tamil: மூலக்கூறு (mūlakkūṟu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Tatar: молекула (molequla) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Telugu: అణువు (aṇuvu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Thai: โมเลกุล (moo-lee-gun) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Thai: อณู (à-nuu) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Turkish: molekül — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Turkmen: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Ukrainian: моле́кула (molékula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Urdu: اَنُو (anū) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Urdu: سالْمَہ (sālma) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Uyghur: مولېكۇلا (molëkula) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Uzbek: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Vietnamese: phân tử — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Volapük: mölekül — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Waray-Waray: molekula — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Welsh: moleciwl — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
  • Yiddish: מאָלעקול (molekul) — group of atoms held together by chemical bonds
Real reading context

molecule in complete knowledge articles