spectrum

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

spectrum

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Latin spectrum (“appearance, image, apparition”), from speciō (“look at, view”). Doublet of specter. See also scope.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Canada, UK) IPA^(key): /ˈspɛktɹəm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (Mid-Atlantic US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛktɹəm

Noun

spectrum (plural spectra or spectrums)

1. A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes.

   Near-synonym: sliding scale

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎:

     As Mr. Obama prepared to take the oath, his approval rating touched a remarkable 70 percent in some polling — a reflection of good will across the political spectrum.

2. Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies; hence electromagnetic spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, etc. [from later 17th c.]
   • 2010 October 30, Jim Giles, “Jammed!”, in New Scientist:

     Current 3G technologies can send roughly 1 bit of data - a one or a zero - per second over each 1 Hz of spectrum that the operator owns.

3. (psychology, education, usually with the) The autism spectrum.
   • 2022, Percival Everett, Dr. No, Influx Press (2023), page 110:

     He punctuated his words with a look into my eyes that might have been read as threatening or menacing by anyone who was not on the spectrum. But I am on the spectrum, and so I stared back at him.

4. (chemistry) The pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance when subjected to energy (radiation, heat, electricity, etc.).
5. (mathematics, linear algebra) The set of eigenvalues of a matrix.

   Synonym: eigenspectrum

6. (mathematics, functional analysis) Of a bounded linear operator A, the set of scalar values λ such that the operator A—λI, where I denotes the identity operator, does not have a bounded inverse; intended as a generalisation of the linear algebra sense.
7. (commutative algebra, algebraic geometry) An abstract object in mathematics created from a commutative ring ${\displaystyle R}$ and denoted ${\displaystyle \operatorname {Spec} (R)}$ or ${\displaystyle \operatorname {Spec} R}$ and said to be the spectrum of ${\displaystyle R}$; useful in the study of such rings for providing a geometric object which encodes many of the properties ${\displaystyle R}$, and in modern geometry for generalizing the notion of an algebraic variety to that of an affine scheme. Formally, the set of all prime ideals ${\displaystyle R}$ equipped with the Zariski topology and augmented with a sheaf of rings called the structure sheaf, generated by the B-sheaf on the distinguished open sets ${\displaystyle D_{f}}$ which assigns the localization of ${\displaystyle R}$ at ${\displaystyle f}$ to each set ${\displaystyle D_{f}}$, regarded as a ring of functions on ${\displaystyle D_{f}}$. See Spectrum of a ring on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

   Hypernym: scheme

   Hyponym: Stone space

8. (obsolete) Specter, apparition. [from early 17th c.]
9. The image of something seen that persists after the eyes are closed.

Derived terms

• absorption spectrum
• autism spectrum
• autism spectrum disorder
• autistic spectrum
• autistic spectrum disorder
• band spectrum
• Bloch spectrum
• broad-spectrum
• broad-spectrum antibiotic
• cepstrum
• Eilenberg-MacLane spectrum
• emission spectrum
• fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
• first-order spectrum
• full-spectrum superiority
• full spectrum superiority
• hydrogen spectrum
• light spectrum
• line spectrum
• mass spectrum
• narrow-spectrum
• nuclear spectrum
• on the spectrum
• optical spectrum
• political spectrum
• schizophrenia spectrum
• spectro-
• spectrum analyser
• spectrum analyzer
• spectrum disorder
• spread spectrum communication

Related terms

• spectral

Translations

range

Belarusian: спектр m (spjektr) Bulgarian: спектър (bg) m (spektǎr) Chinese: Mandarin: 範圍 / 范围 (zh) (fànwéi) Finnish: kirjo (fi) French: spectre (fr) m Georgian: სპექტრი (sṗekṭri) Greek: φάσμα (el) n (fásma) Irish: speictream m Italian: spettro (it) Japanese: スペクトル (ja) (supekutoru) Korean: 스펙트럼 (ko) (seupekteureom) Persian: طیف (fa) (teyf) Polish: spektrum (pl) n Portuguese: espectro (pt) m (Brazil, Portugal), espetro m (Portugal) Romanian: spectru (ro) n Russian: спектр (ru) m (spektr), диапазо́н (ru) m (diapazón) Spanish: espectro (es) m Tagalog: balangaw (tl) Thai: สเปกตรัม Ukrainian: спектр m (spektr)

range of colors

Afrikaans: spektrum Albanian: spektri Arabic: طَيْف m (ṭayf) Armenian: սպեկտր (hy) (spektr) Basque: espektro Bulgarian: спектър (bg) m (spektǎr) Catalan: espectre (ca) m Chinese: Cantonese: 光譜 / 光谱 (gwong1 pou2) Hakka: 光譜 / 光谱 (kông-phú) Mandarin: 光譜 / 光谱 (zh) (guāngpǔ) Czech: spektrum n Danish: spektrum n, spekter n Dutch: spectrum (nl) n Esperanto: spektro Estonian: spekter Finnish: kirjo (fi), spektri (fi) French: spectre (fr) m Galician: espectro (gl) m Georgian: სპექტრი (sṗekṭri) German: Spektrum (de) n Greek: φάσμα (el) n (fásma), φωτόφασμα n (fotófasma) Hebrew: ספקטרום (he) (spéktrum) Hungarian: spektrum (hu), színkép (hu) Irish: speictream m Italian: spettro (it) Japanese: スペクトル (ja) (supekutoru), 分光 (ja) (ぶんこう, bunkō) Korean: 분광(分光) (ko) (bun'gwang) Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: şebeng (ku) f Latvian: spektrs m Lithuanian: spektras m Macedonian: спектар m (spektar) Maori: tūāwhiorangi Norwegian: Bokmål: spektrum n, spekter n Nynorsk: spektrum n, spekter n Persian: طیف (fa) (teyf), بیناب (fa) (binâb) Polish: widmo (pl) n Portuguese: espectro (pt) m (Brazil, Portugal), espetro m (Portugal) Romanian: spectru (ro) n Russian: спектр (ru) m (spektr) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: спектар m Roman: spektar (sh) m Slovak: spektrum n Slovene: spekter (sl) m Spanish: espectro (es) m Swedish: spektrum (sv) n Tagalog: balangaw (tl) Telugu: వర్ణమాల (te) (varṇamāla) Thai: สเปกตรัม Turkish: tayf (tr) Ukrainian: спектр m (spektr) Vietnamese: quang phổ (vi) (光譜) Volapük: späktrum (vo), kölaspäktrum

psychology: the autism spectrum

Bulgarian: спектър (bg) m (spektǎr) Chinese: Mandarin: 譜系 / 谱系 (zh) (pǔxì) Spanish: espectro (es) m

chemistry: a pattern of absorption or emission of radiation

Bulgarian: спектър (bg) m (spektǎr) Finnish: spektri (fi) French: spectre (fr) m German: Spektrum (de) n Greek: φάσμα (el) n (fásma) Irish: speictream m Japanese: スペクトル (ja) (supekutoru) Khmer: ស្ប៊ិច (sbɨc) Maori: tūāwhiorangi Persian: بیناب (fa) (binâb) Portuguese: espectro (pt) m (Brazil, Portugal), espetro m (Portugal)

linear algebra: set of scalar values

Bulgarian: спектър (bg) m (spektǎr) Finnish: spektri (fi) French: spectre (fr) m German: Spektrum (de) n Greek: φάσμα (el) n (fásma) Irish: speictream m Italian: spettro (it) Japanese: スペクトル (ja) (supekutoru) Portuguese: espectro (pt) m (Brazil, Portugal), espetro m (Portugal) Romanian: spectru (ro) n Russian: спектр (ru) m (spektr)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

German: (please verify) Spektrum (de) n (1, 2, 3) Swedish: (please verify) spektrum (sv) n (2, 3)

Anagrams

• cepstrum, crumpets

Dutch

Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:

spectrum

Wikipedia ^nl

Etymology

From Latin spectrum (“appearance, image, apparition”), from speciō (“look at, view”).

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

spectrum n (plural spectrums or spectra, diminutive spectrumpje n)

1. spectrum

Derived terms

• spectraal
• spectroscoop