gluon

Etymology

From glue + -on. From being a particle (suffix "-on") that "glues" (attracts) together particles that feel the force carried by the gluon. Coined by American physicist Murray Gell-Mann in 1962.

noun

1. (physics) A massless gauge boson that binds quarks together to form baryons, mesons and other hadrons and is associated with the strong nuclear force.
   Naive realism might ask today: Tell me what space is in itself, not in terms of other things. Tell me what a gluon is at bottom, or a neutrino, or a charge. 1992 November, George Zebrowski, Marvin Mattelson, “The Enigma of Distance”, in Omni, volume 15, number 2, page 80
   The so-called spin crisis has had important effects beyond simply confronting theorists with a particularly sharp challenge to their incomplete understanding of quantum chromodynamics, the underlying field theory of quarks and the gluons that mediate their strong interactions. 1995 September, Robert Jaffe, “Where Does the Proton Really Get Its Spin?”, in Physics Today, volume 48, number 9, →DOI, page 24
   Lattice QCD explores the particle realm by taking a different tack. It simulates quark and gluon behaviors by applying the full QCD theory to a tiny grid like facsimile of the space-time in which particles actually interact. 2004-09-07, Peter Weiss, “Starting from Square One”, in Science News, volume 166, number 6, →DOI, pages 90–1