californium
/ˌkælɪˈfɔɹniəm/noun
californium is a noun meaning “A strongly radioactive and highly fissile transuranic chemical element (symbol Cf) with an atomic number of 98” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-U-M, and it appears about once in every 28 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does californium mean?
noun
- 1
A strongly radioactive and highly fissile transuranic chemical element (symbol Cf) with an atomic number of 98.
- 2
An atom of this element.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce californium?
- US /ˌkælɪˈfɔɹniəm/
- UK /ˌkælɪˈfɔːniəm/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-californium.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-californium.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is californium?
Californium appears about once in every 28 million words in written English, the 159,707th 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).
Californium in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense chemical element:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | californium |
| German | Californium |
| Portuguese | califórnio |
| Spanish | californio |
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 californium come from?
From California + -ium. The element was first synthesized at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), thus named after the university and the U.S. state of California.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).