fermi

1. 1.

   a metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter

   Synonymsfemtometerfemtometre

   Broadermetric linear unit

   Part ofpicometer

   Canada · United Kingdom

2. 2.

   Italian nuclear physicist (in the United States after 1939) who worked on artificial radioactivity caused by neutron bombardment and who headed the group that in 1942 produced the first controlled nuclear reaction (1901-1954)

   SynonymsEnrico Fermi

   Broadernuclear physicist

Other forms of fermi

plural

fermis·

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.

Questions about fermi

What does fermi mean?

fermi means "a metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in fermi?

fermi has 2 syllables: fer-mi. The stress falls on "fer". In IPA it is /ˈfɝmi/.

What is another word for fermi?

Close synonyms include femtometer, femtometre, Enrico Fermi. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is fermi a common word?

fermi is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.