heavy water

1. 1.

   water containing a substantial proportion of deuterium atoms, used in nuclear reactors

   Synonymsdeuterium oxide

   Broadermoderator

Questions about heavy water

What does heavy water mean?

heavy water means "water containing a substantial proportion of deuterium atoms, used in nuclear reactors".

What is another word for heavy water?

Close synonyms include deuterium oxide. 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 heavy water a common word?

heavy water is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.