aerogel
/ˈɛɹ.oʊ.d͡ʒɛl/noun
aerogel is a noun meaning “A porous, ultralight solid-state substance, similar to gel, in which the liquid component is replaced with gas” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-E-R-O-G-E-L and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 11 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of aerogel is aerogels.
What does aerogel mean?
noun
- 1
A porous, ultralight solid-state substance, similar to gel, in which the liquid component is replaced with gas.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce aerogel?
- US /ˈɛɹ.oʊ.d͡ʒɛl/
Aerogel has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Moire9-aerogel.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of aerogel
- aerogels plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is aerogel?
Aerogel appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 100,430th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Aerogel in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense ultralight solid-state substance:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does aerogel come from?
From aero- + gel. First attested in the early 1920s as a coinage credited to British-Irish chemist Frederick G. Donnan, originally in reference to coagulated aerosols.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).