Lone pair

[EvaLi_3J]

Can anyone please explain what a lone pair is? Is it just the valence electrons that have not been used in bonding?

[Jamie Lee 1H]

Yes you are correct. Lone pairs are just a pair of valence electrons that are not bonded.

[rabiasumar2E]

Lone pairs are just electrons that aren't bonded!

[Snigdha Uppu 1G]

A lone pair is just the pair of electrons not used in the chemical bond, which is why they are lonely.

[KHowe_1D]

A lone pair is a pair of electrons not bonding two elements together.

[gferg21]

a lone pair is just that: a pair of lonely electrons just floating in the valence shell of an atom. Without an atom to bond to/share electrons with, they do not serve any major purpose at the moment besides showing that they are present.

[rohun2H]

A lone pair is a pair of electrons not shared with another atom.

[Qilan Li 4I]

Lone pairs are valence electrons that are not shared with another atom in a bond. They are found in the outermost electron shell of atoms.

[Matthew Tsai 2H]

Yep, as previous answers stated, lone pairs just refer to a pair of electrons in an orbital that are not shared with another atom.