Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "curie" [curie]

  • A unit of radioactivity, equal to the amount of a radioactive isotope that decays at the rate of 3.7 × 1010 disintegrations per second. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "curie" in a sentence
  • "The curie is a unit of radioactivity (3.7 x 1010 decays per second or 37 gigabecquerels) originally named in honor of Pierre Curie by the Radiology Congress in 1910."
  • "The amount of emanation in equilibrium with one gramme of radium is called the curie, and with one"
  • "Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 10 million curies of radiation escaped the damaged reactor core (a "curie" is a unit of radioactivity that denotes how many radioactive atoms in a particular collection of atoms are giving off radiation; 1 curie = 37 billion atoms giving off radiation)."