American English

Definition of valency noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary



    (pl. valencies) [countable, uncountable] (also valence
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  1. 1(chemistry) a measurement of the power of an atom to combine with others, by the number of hydrogen atoms it can combine with or displace Carbon has a valency of 4.
  2. 2(linguistics) the number of grammatical elements that a word, especially a verb, combines with in a sentence
See the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary entry: valency