Does electronegativity cancel?

[Ruth Rosales 3D]

Some clarification needed.

If a highly electronegative atom bonds with an atom with low electronegativity, what does it mean for the electronegativity of the molecule overall?

[Daria Obukhova 2B]

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure molecules don't have a measured electronegavity, because electronegativity is a measure of how strongly an atom attracts the electrons in a bond. So, I think it's mostly applied to just atoms.

[Lauren Sarigumba 1K]

If a highly electronegative atom bonds with an atom that has low electronegativity, then the electrons are not shared equally and therefore the bond between the two atoms is polar. However, if polar bonds of equal polarity are evenly distributed in space, the molecule as a whole is considered nonpolar. A molecule can contain polar bonds, but if these polar bonds are equal in magnitude and are in opposite directions of the molecule, then that molecule is nonpolar. Therefore, it is possible for a nonpolar molecule to contain polar bonds.

[705383815]

The electronegativities cancel when the opposing dipoles align symmetrically and are of the same strengths. Think of it as adding and subtracting integers and seeing if the value is zero or not. But in this case, they must also be properly oriented.

[Earl Garrovillo 2L]

From my understanding, electronegativities do not cancel. They're not like charges where formal charges of atoms within a molecule contribute to the overall charge of the molecule. Electronegativity "stays" with its atom, for lack of a better word. In a molecule where one atom is highly electronegative and another lowly electronegative, the resulting molecule would have a negative dipole on the side with the highly electronegative atom and a positive dipole on the low electronegative atom's side. So as far as I know, there's not an "overall" molecular electronegativity but areas where the molecule is more electronegative or less electronegative.