hardness
Pronunciation: /ˈhɑɹdnəs/
The English word “hardness” has 7 meanings listed here.
noun
- The quality of being hard.
- An instance of this quality; hardship.
- The quantity of calcium carbonate dissolved in water, usually expressed in parts per million (ppm).
- The resistance to scratching, cutting, indentation or abrasion of a metal or other solid material.
- The penetrating ability of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays; generally, the shorter the wavelength, the harder and more penetrating the radiation.
- The measure of resistance to damage of a facility, equipment, installation, or telecommunications infrastructure when subjected to attack.
- A measure of how hard a material is.
Etymology
From Middle English hardness, hardnesse, from Old English heardnes, from heard + -nes, equivalent to hard + -ness.
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.