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Welcome to the Online Dictionary of Crystallography (the ODC) maintained by the Commission for Crystallographic Nomenclature (CCN) of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). The ODC functions as a virtual hyperglossary for journals published by the IUCr; when an article from one of the IUCr journals is read online the words defined in the ODC appear as clickable links. The ODC was envisioned as a reference work that would have some aspects of a dictionary and others of an encyclopaedia.

The ODC is run as a wiki; the entries are created and modified by the authorized users, who are the members of the CCN and others approved by the ODC Editor. Entries in the ODC are descriptive rather than prescriptive. There is no formal review process, so if an entry in the ODC differs from a similar definition in one of the volumes of the International Tables for Crystallography the latter is the more authoritative source.

• About this site
• Editor-in-Chief: Gervais Chapuis
• Founding Editor: André Authier
• Chair of the Commission on Nomenclature: Carolyn P. Brock

crystallography

from Greek κρυσταλλος − (krustallos) ice, crystal + γραφειν (graphein) − to write

The branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties, with far-reaching applications in mineralogy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, metallurgy and materials science.

• Indexes

Index of all entries
Most popular pages
Index of categories