ronto-
/ˈɹɑn.toʊ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
3
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
prefix
In the International System of Units and other metric systems of units, multiplying the unit to which it is attached by 10⁻²⁷ (short scale octillionth or long scale quadrilliardth). Symbol: r
Example Sentences
- "For example, 1 ronnameter (Rm) is 1 billion billion billion meters and 1 quettameter (Qm), 1000 times bigger still; 1 rontometer (rm) is one-billionth of a billionth of a billionth of 1 meter and 1 quectometer (qm), one-thousandth of that."
- "Earth’s mass is on the order of a ronnagram, and an electron’s mass is about one rontogram."
- "Infinite degrees of separation (picoseconds, femtoseconds, attoseconds, zeptoseconds, yoctoseconds, rontoseconds, quectoseconds, etcetera) exist between any nanosecond and its immediate successor."
- "We applied these models for systems ranging from a small isolated molecule, for which the collapse time is of the order of a billion years, to mesoscopic crystals, whose collapse could occur within days, and macroscopic systems, collapsing within a rontosecond (10⁻²⁷ s)."
Etymology
Blend of r (an arbitrarily chosen initial letter) + Ancient Greek ἐννέα (ennéa, “nine”) + -to (to match the final syllable of the SI prefixes from femto- downwards). Coined by Richard J. C. Brown and adopted by the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 2022 as an expansion to the metric prefixes beyond 10^(±24). Some popular unofficial terms already in use were hella-, bronto- and xenna-, but terms beginning with the same letters as existing prefixes were considered undesirable, as were those beginning with common scientific letters such as b or x. Richard J. C. Brown suggested that the new terms begin with r and q, due to their rarity as unit symbols, and that the trends followed by the other prefixes be continued: that they be based on Latin or Greek; that large prefixes end with -a and small prefixes end with -o; that they should be in corresponding large and small pairs; and that the first letters of each prefix should be in reverse alphabetical order (as has been the case for the newer prefixes). He therefore suggested ronna- and ronto- (evoking Ancient Greek ἐννέα (ennéa) and Latin novem (“nine”)), and quecca- and quecto- (evoking Ancient Greek δέκα (déka) and Latin decem (“ten”)), because as 10²⁷ and 10³⁰ when written have nine and ten groups of zeroes, respectively. These were adopted, with quecca- changed to quetta-.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɹɑn.toʊ/