ozone
/ˈəʊzəʊn
/noun [mass noun]
1A colourless unstable toxic gas with a pungent odour and powerful oxidizing properties, formed from oxygen by electrical discharges or ultraviolet light. It differs from normal oxygen (O2) in having three atoms in its molecule (O3).Adding that third oxygen atom makes ozone a very pushy and highly obnoxious little molecule....
- Water vapour, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, and the chlorofluorocarbons are known as Greenhouse Gases.
- The four usual agents of deterioration in the air apart from oxygen and water are sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, ozone and nitrogen dioxide.
1.1 short for ozone layer.Tropospheric ozone can permanently damage people's lungs and prohibit plants from producing and storing food....
- Also, the presence of stratospheric ozone sandwiched between the satellite and the troposphere makes seeing tropospheric ozone very difficult.
- So, as we learn more about stratospheric ozone and climate change, what were once two separate problems have become more and more entwined.
2British informal Fresh invigorating air, especially that blowing on to the shore from the sea.Because of wind patterns, most ozone blows east to Fountain Hills....
- The rain had taken the city's baseline odor of fear and body fluids and replaced it with fresh, sweet-smelling ozone.
Derivatives
ozonic
/ adjective ...- The invention relates to a method of disinfecting seed, wherein the seed is treated with ozonic gas.
- Use ozonic water in the spray bottle, and spray it onto the blankets, bed, clothes every morning!
Origin
Mid 19th century: from German Ozon, from Greek ozein 'to smell'.
Today the usual association of ozone is with the ozone layer, a layer in the earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the harmful ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth from the sun, and which is under threat from atmospheric pollutants. Ozone is a strong-smelling, poisonous form of oxygen whose name goes back to Greek ozein ‘to smell’. It was originally believed to have a tonic effect and to be present in fresh air, especially at the seaside. In Penelope Mortimer's autobiographical About Time (1987) she writes: ‘An important part of our middle-class Englishness was the seaside holiday—no baking on a Mediterranean beach, but lungfuls of ozone, gales, hard sand.’