radical
Meaning
adj 1: (used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm;"extremist political views"; "radical opinions on
education"; "an ultra conservative" [syn: extremist,
ultra]
2: markedly new or introducing radical change; "a revolutionary
discovery"; "radical political views" [syn: revolutionary]
3: arising from or going to the root; "a radical flaw in the
plan"
4: of or relating to or constituting a linguistic root; "a
radical verb form"
5: especially of leaves; located at the base of a plant or
stem; especially arising directly from the root or
rootstock or a root-like stem; "basal placentation";
"radical leaves" [syn: basal] [ant: cauline]
n 1: (chemistry) two or more atoms bound together as a single
unit and forming part of a molecule [syn: group, chemical
group]
2: an atom or group of atoms with at least one unpaired
electron; in the body it is usually an oxygen molecule
than has lost an electron and will stabilize itself by
stealing an electron from a nearby molecule; "in the body
free radicals are high-energy particles that ricochet
wildly and damage cells" [syn: free radical]
3: a person who has radical ideas or opinions
4: a character conveying the lexical meaning of a logogram
5: a sign placed in front of an expression to denote that a
root is to be extracted [syn: radical sign]
6: (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are
removed; "thematic vowels are part of the stem" [syn: root,
root word, base, stem, theme]