Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A logarithmic scale used to express the amount of energy released by an earthquake. Its values typically fall between 0 and 9, with each increase of 1 representing a 10-fold increase in energy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun seismology a
logarithmic scale used toexpress theenergy released by anearthquake , eachincrease of 1 representing a 32-fold increase in energy. - noun A value on the Richter scale
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a logarithmic scale of 1 to 10 formerly used to express the magnitude of an earthquake on the basis of the size of seismograph oscillations
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[After Charles Francis Richter, (1900–1985), American seismologist.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From American seismologist Charles Richter.
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