any of a group of elementary particles, such as a pion or kaon, that usually has a rest mass between those of an electron and a proton, and an integral spin. They are responsible for the force between nucleons in the atomic nucleus
See also muon
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025
me•son
(mē′zon, -son, mez′on, mes′-),USA pronunciation n.
me•son′ic, adj.
- Physicsany hadron, or strongly interacting particle, other than a baryon. Mesons are bosons, having spins of 0, 1, 2, …, and, unlike baryons, do not obey a conservation law. Cf. quark model.
- 1935–40; mes-+ on1; compare mesotron
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
'meson' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
B meson
- B particle
- D meson
- D particle
- J/psi particle
- K meson
- K-meson
- Powell
- Yukawa meson
- charmonium
- eta meson
- exchange
- isotopic spin
- kaon
- mesic
- mesotron
- mizzen
- mizzenmast
- mu meson
- muon
- on
- pi meson
- pion
- quarkonium