spectrum
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
spectrum/ˈspektrəm/
▶noun (pl. spectra /-trə/)
- 1 a band of colours produced by separation of the components of light by their different degrees of refraction according to wavelength, e.g. in a rainbow.
■ the entire range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
■ a characteristic series of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by a substance.
■ the components of a sound or other phenomenon arranged according to frequency, energy, etc.
- 2 a scale extending between two points; a range: the political spectrum.
– origin C17 (in the sense ‘spectre’): from L., lit. ‘image, apparition’, from specere ‘to look’.
'spectrum' also found in these Oxford entries:
band
- big
- blue shift
- broad-spectrum
- caesium
- colour
- diffraction grating
- doublet
- doxycycline
- gentamicin
- green
- helium
- indigo
- indium
- line
- mass spectrum
- multiplet
- multispectral
- panchromatic
- prism
- red
- red shift
- resolve
- rubidium
- samarium
- singlet
- spectra
- spectral
- spectre
- spectro-
- spectrogram
- spectrophotometer
- Stark effect
- superinfection
- thallium
- triplet
- tritanopia
- violet
- white light
- yellow
- Zeeman effect
