radioactive decay

1. 1.

   the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along with the emission of ionizing radiation

   Synonymsdecaydisintegration

   Broadernuclear reaction

   Narroweralpha decaybeta decay

Questions about radioactive decay

What does radioactive decay mean?

radioactive decay means "the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along with the emission of ionizing radiation".

What is another word for radioactive decay?

Close synonyms include decay, disintegration. 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 radioactive decay a common word?

radioactive decay 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.