deliquescent
Americanadjective
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dissolving or melting away; having a fragile or ephemeral quality.
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Chemistry. tending to dissolve or liquefy by absorbing moisture from the air.
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Botany. forming many small divisions or branches.
Other Word Forms
Explanation
The adjective deliquescent describes something that tends to absorb so much water from the air around it that it starts to become liquified itself. This scientific term is perfect for describing a substance like salt, which tends to pull moisture into itself, as it's in the process of becoming soggy. If you ever leave a dish of salt on the kitchen counter on a humid day and watch as liquid begins to pool around it, you can say, "Wow, that salt is deliquescent." The Latin root is liquere, "to be liquid."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The crystals are deliquescent, very soluble in water, and have an odor like that of garlic.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s CD release performance began with “Elf” — an extended composition based around “Isfahan,” the deliquescent Billy Strayhorn ballad — and ended on a bridling, crosshatched rendition of Kraftwerk’s “The Model.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2018
Dulwich exhibits Hero and Leandro, painted like those landscape panels in 1985 – their dribbles and fingerworking here orchestrated into a deliquescent collapse of mist-greys and cerise.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 6, 2011
The splurge tommy guns, designed with the help of a gunsmith, shoot a substance that looks like deliquescent marshmallow.
From Time Magazine Archive
Another order belonging to this sub-family is the Phalloidei, in which the volva or peridium is ruptured whilst the plant is still immature, and the hymenium when mature becomes deliquescent.
From Fungi: Their Nature and Uses by Cooke, M. C. (Mordecai Cubitt)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
