Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A hypothetical, massive subatomic particle predicted by the standard model theory to explain discrepancies in elementary particle mass.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun physics A hypothetical elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model; a boson with zero spin, it is thought to give mass to other particles.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From the fact that it is the fundamental particle of the Higgs field.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Higgs ("a surname") + boson; after the British physicist Peter Higgs, who is credited with proposing what is now called the Higgs mechanism.

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