reagent
Americannoun
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
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.
With help from a third lab, the Reagent and Diagnostic Services branch, also in Building 23, the materials were poured into vials and readied for shipment to the states.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 26, 2020
Reagent and laboratory contamination can critically impact sequence-based microbiome analyses.
From Nature • Oct. 31, 2017
The first relates to the "Prognostic Signs of the Weather" and the second is "On the Oxyacetite of Iron as a Test or Reagent for the Discovery of Arsenic."
From James Cutbush An American Chemist, 1788-1823 by Smith, Edgar Fahs
Pour into a test tube 5 cc. of the oil to be tested and 5 cc. of Halphen's Reagent.
From Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value by Snyder, Harry
Reagent, rē-ā′jent, n. a substance that reacts on and detects the presence of other bodies: a test: one who exerts reflex influence.—n.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various
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.
