Loading page
say it: di-FRAK-shuhn
diffraction is a noun meaning "when light passes sharp edges or goes through narrow slits the rays are deflected and produce fringes of light and dark bands". It is pronounced /dɪˈfɹækʃən/ — di-FRAK-shuhn. It carries one recorded sense.
when light passes sharp edges or goes through narrow slits the rays are deflected and produce fringes of light and dark bands
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for diffraction come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.