spallation
/spɔːleɪʃən/noun
spallation is a noun meaning “Fragmentation due to stress or impact, or any pattern of surface damage created thereby” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-P-A-L-L-A-T-I-O-N, and it appears about once in every 20 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of spallation is spallations.
What does spallation mean?
noun
- 1
Fragmentation due to stress or impact, or any pattern of surface damage created thereby.
- 2
A nuclear reaction in which a nucleus fragments into many nucleons.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce spallation?
- UK /spəˈleɪʃ(ə)n/
- US /spɔːleɪʃən/
- US /spɑːleɪʃən/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-spallation.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of spallation
- spallations plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is spallation?
Spallation appears about once in every 20 million words in written English, the 134,976th 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).
Spallation in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | spallation , éclatement, fragmentation, pulvérisation, explosion, atomisation |
| Spanish | espalación , estallido, fragmentación, astillado, explosión, reventón |
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 spallation come from?
From spall + -ation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).