The intermolecular forces in polymers can be affected by dipoles in the monomer units.

For example, acetic acid forms a dimer in the gas phase, where the monomer units are held together by hydrogen bonds.

Jogs occur when, over small number of monomer units, the linear chain is displaced laterally but continues in the same direction as before.

Often, many thousands of monomer units are incorporated in a single molecule of a polymer.

Many polymer molecules are like chains where the monomer units are the links.

Molecules made of a small number of monomer units, up to a few dozen, are called oligomers.

Dendrimers are a special case of branched polymer where every monomer unit is also a branch point.

Like all polymers, polysilazanes are built from one or several basic monomer units.

A more general functionality factor f is defined for multi-chain polymerization, as the average number of functional groups present per monomer unit.

In the second step, radicals are transferred from the initiator molecules to the monomer units present.