amorphos

Amorphos is a term employed across several disciplines to denote systems or substances that lack a defined, regular shape. The word derives from Greek a- meaning without and morphos meaning form.

In materials science, amorphos most commonly refers to amorphous solids, which lack long-range order in their atomic structure. Examples include glass, certain polymers, gels, and metallic glasses. These materials exhibit short-range order, isotropic properties, and typically do not have a sharp melting point; instead they undergo a glass transition upon heating. Fabrication methods include rapid quenching from the liquid state, sol-gel processing, and vapor deposition, which suppress crystallization.

Outside strict science, amorphos is sometimes used more loosely to describe objects with irregular or undefined boundaries, such as amorphous aggregates in microbiology or amorphous shapes in generative art and design. In philosophy and aesthetics, the term can be used to discuss forms that resist fixed geometry.

Notes: The term is not a distinct scientific category beyond amorphous matter; its usage varies by field and is often synonymous with amorphous.

See also: Amorphous solid, Glass, Gel, Polymer, Metallic glass.