Chemistry and electronegativity

This article addresses the chemical aspects of electronegativity: (1) What is its present status in the chemical community? (2) What are the necessary chemical criteria for a quantitative definition? (3) To what extent do contemporary proposals satisfy these criteria? (4) What connection can be made between the traditional free‐atom scales and an in situ electronegativity appropriate for a particular atom in a specific molecule or solid? A longstanding special feature of electronegativity has been the seeming inability to measure it in the laboratory and this aspect proves to be a key to its definition. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.