helium
noun/ˈhiːliəm/
/ˈhiːliəm/
[uncountable] (symbol He)
- a chemical element. Helium is a very light gas that does not burn, often used to fill balloons and to freeze food.Topics Physics and chemistryc1Oxford Collocations DictionaryHelium is used before these nouns:
- balloon
Word Originlate 19th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek hēlios ‘sun’, because its existence was deduced from an emission line in the sun's spectrum.
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helium