What term is used to describe a particle made up of quarks?

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The term used to describe a particle made up of quarks is "Hadron." Hadrons are composite particles that are formed from quarks, which are the fundamental constituents of matter within the framework of particle physics. They come in two primary categories: baryons, which are made up of three quarks (such as protons and neutrons), and mesons, which are composed of one quark and one antiquark. This structure is fundamental to understanding the strong force that binds quarks together, which is one of the four fundamental forces in nature.

In contrast, leptons, such as electrons and neutrinos, are elementary particles that do not consist of quarks and participate in weak interactions rather than strong interactions. Neutrinos are a specific type of lepton which have very little mass and interact only through the weak force, making them vastly different from hadrons. An ion, on the other hand, refers to any atom or molecule that has a net electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons. Thus, the definition and composition of hadrons place them in a unique position within particle physics that distinguishes them from these other categories of particles.

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