chemical bond

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

• noun Any of several forces, especially the ionic bond, covalent bond, and metallic bond, by which atoms or ions are bound in a molecule or crystal.

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

• noun chemistry Any of several attractive forces that serve to bind atoms together to form molecules

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an electrical force linking atoms