a combining form extracted from electron, used with nouns or combining forms, principally in the names of electron tubes (ignitron; klystron; magnetron) and of devices for accelerating subatomic particles (cosmotron; cyclotron); also, more generally, in the names of any kind of chamber or apparatus used in experiments (biotron).
Origin
by initial shortening of electron, with perhaps accidental allusion to the Gk instrumental suffix -tron, as in árotron plough
British Dictionary definitions for -tron
-tron
suffix
1.
indicating a vacuum tube: magnetron
2.
indicating an instrument for accelerating atomic or subatomic particles: synchrotron
Word Origin
from Greek, suffix indicating instrument
Word Origin and History for -tron
as a word-forming element in new compounds formed in physics, 1939, abstracted from electron (Greek -tron was an instrumentive suffix).