wave number

1. 1.

   the reciprocal of the wavelength of a wave

   Broaderfrequency

   Narrowerrydberg

Questions about wave number

What does wave number mean?

wave number means "the reciprocal of the wavelength of a wave".

Is wave number a common word?

wave number 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.