Covalent bond

A chemical bond formed when atoms share one or more pairs of electrons. Shared electrons help hold the bonded atoms together.

Lewis structure: A diagram showing valence electrons and bonds in a molecule or ion. Lewis structures represent each shared electron pair as a bond.
Valence electron: An electron in an atom's outer shell that can participate in chemical bonding. These are the electrons atoms share in covalent bonds.
Ionic bond: An electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged ions, commonly formed by electron transfer. Unlike covalent bonding, the usual model emphasizes transferred electrons and charged ions.
Molecular geometry: The three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in a molecule. Bonding pairs and lone pairs shape the arrangement around covalently bonded atoms.
Bond dissociation energy: The energy required to break a specified chemical bond homolytically in the gas phase. It quantifies the energy cost of breaking a covalent bond.
Bond order: A measure of the number of electron-pair bonds between two atoms. Single, double, and triple covalent bonds differ in bond order.
Atomic orbital: A quantum-mechanical description of the spatial distribution of an electron in an atom. Atomic orbitals overlap to form many covalent bonds.
Metallic bond: Attraction between metal cations and electrons delocalized through a solid. Metallic bonding involves mobile electrons shared across many atoms, not localized pairs.
Water: A chemical compound whose molecules contain two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to one oxygen atom. Its polar covalent O–H bonds help explain water's distinctive properties.
Chemical reaction: A process in which substances are transformed through the breaking and formation of chemical bonds. Reactions rearrange covalent bonds to produce different substances.

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