amalgam
Americannoun
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an alloy of mercury with another metal or metals.
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an alloy that consists chiefly of silver mixed with mercury and variable amounts of other metals and is used as a dental filling.
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a rare mineral, an alloy of silver and mercury, occurring as silver-white crystals or grains.
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a mixture or combination.
His character is a strange amalgam of contradictory traits.
noun
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an alloy of mercury with another metal, esp with silver
dental amalgam
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a rare white metallic mineral that consists of silver and mercury and occurs in deposits of silver and cinnabar
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a blend or combination
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An alloy of mercury and another metal, especially:
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An alloy of mercury and silver used in dental fillings.
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An alloy of silver and tin used in silvering mirrors.
Etymology
Origin of amalgam
1425–75; late Middle English amalgam ( e ) < Middle French < Medieval Latin < dialectal Arabic al the + malgham < Greek málagma softening agent, equivalent to malak- (stem of malássein to soften) + -ma noun suffix
Explanation
In science, when you mix a metal with mercury to soften it, you create an amalgam. Otherwise, an amalgam is simply a combination of two or more unlike things into one. Use amalgam when the mixture of several things creates something different and larger. If your school puts together a drug prevention task force of police, doctors, teachers, social workers, and students, the task force is an amalgam of local resources. If your band plays a combination of country music and jazz, they play an amalgam of contemporary styles. We can only hope they play it well.
Vocabulary lists containing amalgam
"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 24
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Picture Us in the Light
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Firekeeper's Daughter
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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.
They have a vast travelling army with them and millions more at home, a strange amalgam of positivity and anxiety, belief and fear.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
“As most fiction, it is a composite, an amalgam of personal experience, research and my fertile, overactive imagination,” Raicek said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
Nations meeting in Geneva agreed "to end the use of dental amalgam by 2034, marking a historic milestone in reducing mercury pollution", the conference announced in its closing statement.
From Barron's ● Nov. 7, 2025
It was a confusing amalgam of emotions, largely compounded by my mom’s general reticence to discuss the topic outside of a personal account she self-published several years ago to process her yearslong PTSD.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2024
Between the flinty crests of the two outermost escarpments of the Outer Range runs an east-west trough, maybe five miles across, carpeted in a boggy amalgam of muskeg, alder thickets, and veins of scrawny spruce.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
