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polar

adjective

1. (general) of, or having one or more poles (in a spherical body); being in opposite extremes

2. (chemistry) pertaining to a compound exhibiting polarity or dipole moment, that is a compound bearing a partial positive charge on one side and a partial negative charge on the other, e.g. water is a polar molecule for having both negative and positive poles.

3. (mathematics) of a coordinate system, specifying the location of a point in a plane by using a radius and an angle

4. characterized by having opposite ends of a spectrum of symptoms or manifestations, as in polar types of leprosy

Word origin: from Late Latin polāris