valency

noun/ˈveɪlənsi/

Frequency rank: #19,814 of 20,003 in the WORDED list (wordfreq data)

Meaning

The combining power of an element or atom, expressed as the number of bonds it can form with other atoms.

Illustration for the English word “valency”

Example sentence

In chemistry class, we learned that oxygen has a fixed valency of two, meaning it can form bonds with two other atoms.

Synonyms & related words

More words in ranks 19,801–19,900