carbon atom
4
3.0
- noun
- /ˈkɑrbən ˈætəm/
- Specialized
:
átomo de carbono
- First, by definition, carbon atoms are found in all organic molecules.
- carbon atoms bond
What they saw was all these hydrogens are coming off, moving around the carbon atom.
- What they saw was all these hydrogens are coming off, moving around the carbon atom.
- It's the same for all carbon atoms regardless of who's nearby.
Examples
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Studying climate change will not keep one carbon atom out of the global atmosphere.
Blog text (5) -
Second, nearly half of an animal's dry mass consists of carbon atoms.
Academic text (2011) -
- And then you add another carbon atom.
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And I reach out and grab a carbon atom and I put it on my chain, right?
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All right, in the lab, you take a carbon atom.
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I would probably tax according to how many carbon atoms are in the substance.
Blog text (5) -
The carbon atom, with four electrons in its outer shell, forms a huge variety of chemicals, including those that make possible all life on earth.
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You're made of carbon atoms, aren't you?
Fiction book (2001) -
We know that very long-chain saturated fats are made up of carbon atoms.
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In organic chemistry, a molecule can be formed by connecting multiple carbon atoms together to create long chains.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is fully compositional: 'carbon' names the chemical element and 'atom' names the smallest unit of an element, so 'carbon atom' straightforwardly means an atom of the element carbon. This noun–noun combination follows common English compounding patterns (and equivalent constructions exist in other languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
Carbon atom comes from old words: carbon is from a word for 'coal' or 'charcoal' because people first noticed this substance in burned wood and coal, and atom is from a word for a very small, uncut piece. So carbon atom literally suggests a tiny piece of coal-like stuff, which helps remember it is the very small particle of the element carbon.