surface tension

1. 1.

   a phenomenon at the surface of a liquid caused by intermolecular forces

   Broaderphysical phenomenon

   Narrowercapillarityinterfacial tension

Questions about surface tension

What does surface tension mean?

surface tension means "a phenomenon at the surface of a liquid caused by intermolecular forces".

Is surface tension a common word?

surface tension 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.