radicals
- 1Plural of radical.
The party's old guard distrusted the radicals pushing for sweeping reform.
Antioxidants help neutralize the free radicals produced during normal metabolism.
Note
A regular plural that serves every noun use of radical, so the context decides which radicals are meant. In politics it usually names people with sweeping opinions. Historically it also named reform-minded members of the Liberal Party, or of a centrist party of moderate reform. In mathematics radicals are roots of numbers. In Chinese writing they are the meaning-bearing parts of characters. In Celtic linguistics they are initial consonants before mutation.
radicals is a form of radical
radical, noun: An atom or molecule with an unpaired electron, which usually makes it highly reactive: a free radical. Full entry
- Forms
- radicalradicals plural
- Spelling
- radical → radicals: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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