Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Same as
valence , 1. - noun A single unit of combining capacity. Thus, carbon is said to have four valencies.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See
valence . - noun A unit of combining power; a so-called bond of affinity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun graph theory The number of
edges connected to avertex in agraph - noun chemistry
valence - noun linguistics The
capacity of averb to take a specific number ofarguments
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the phenomenon of forming chemical bonds
- noun (biology) a relative capacity to unite or react or interact as with antigens or a biological substrate
- noun (chemistry) a property of atoms or radicals; their combining power given in terms of the number of hydrogen atoms (or the equivalent)
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Edward Frankland (182599) announced his theory of valency, that is, each atom has a certain valency, or capacity for combining with a definite number of other atoms.
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So not only did the meaning change, but also the "valency" in the sense of which verbal arguments go where.
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The meaning attached to the word "valency," is simply one of interchangeability, just as we say a penny is worth two halfpennies or four farthings.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 Various
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It is this number which is called the "valency" of the element; but it is now known that the "valency" in most cases can vary between certain limits.
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The term "valency" is not altogether an easy one to define; we will, however, here do our best to make plain its significance.
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A recognition of this fact by Frankland about 1852, and its further investigation by others (notably A. Kekulé and A.S. Couper), led to the introduction of the word equivalent into chemical terminology in a new sense, and in particular to an understanding of the affinities or "valency" of different elements, which proved of the most fundamental importance.
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The kind of valency that exists in CaH2 and C2H2 is?
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Because the other noun “nosh” means “a session of eating” in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of “scoff.”
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The French Chemex process exploited a very slight difference in the two isotopes 'propensity to change valency in oxidation/reduction, utilising aqueous (III valency) and organic (IV) phases.
Uranium enrichment 2009
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The latter two types of fails, I am annotating using del.icio.us/egonw/pubchem+check-valency for others to comment on just tag the same page using del.ici.us, and I'll see the comments show up.
Wicked chemistry and unit testing Egon Willighagen 2008
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