reagent
Americannoun
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reagents
plural
noun
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A substance participating in a chemical reaction, especially one used to detect, measure, or produce another substance.
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Compare agent
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of reagent
Explanation
A reagent is a substance used to create a chemical reaction. Reagents cause transformations. Chemists love reagents because they cause chemical reactions. For example, a certain type of reagent could tell a chemist if something contains a poison. Like a reactant or a catalyst, a reagent makes something happen. It can help you remember reagents are active if you remember that other agents — like secret agents — are also active and make things happen.
Vocabulary lists containing reagent
Chemistry - Introductory
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Chemistry - High School
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Chemistry - Middle School
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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.
See Examples For:
Elevated diesel prices will drive up costs of everything from contract mining, consumables, reagent freight and contract haulage to export logistics, shipping and mine-site aviation, it says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
But a blood enhancement chemical reagent uncovered a footwear mark and drag mark on the floor.
From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026
Quest Diagnostics, the company that provided the faulty tests, said the false results came after the company temporarily changed the reagent, or chemical, that was usually used in the tests.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2025
It is called Murakami's reagent, which etches away carbon residue and changes the colour of steel in knife making, for example.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 16, 2024
“She lives down here. I’m worried that she might be hurt. A lot of the reagent went down the drains from the Fishery.”
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
She demonstrates the process by placing electronic components in a chemical bath and adding reagents one by one until a fine gold powder forms.
From Barron's ● Aug. 4, 2026
“Management’s confirmation that reagents and equipment for current operations and expansion will be sourced ex-China is a key differentiator,” Macquarie says of Lynas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
You keep using the same reagents and equipment to avoid white noise.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2025
The startup says it could save pathology labs significant time and resources, as well as reduce labs’ footprint in toxic reagents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2024
In two years, astonishingly, Mendel had produced a set of reagents that would allow him to interrogate some of the most important features of heredity.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
