Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Capable of burning, corroding, dissolving, or eating away by chemical action.
- adjective Sarcastic or cutting; biting.
- adjective Given to making caustic remarks.
- noun A caustic material or substance.
- noun A hydroxide of a light metal.
- noun The enveloping surface formed by light rays reflecting or refracting from a curved surface, especially one with spherical aberration.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Capable of burning, corroding, or destroying the tissue of animal substances. See
causticity . - Figuratively, severely critical or sarcastic; cutting: as, a caustic remark.
- The curved surface to which all the rays of a conical pencil of light entering a refractive medium are tangential.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
- noun (Optics) A caustic curve or caustic surface.
- adjective Capable of destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance by chemical action; burning; corrosive; searing.
- adjective Severe; satirical; sharp.
- adjective (Optics) a curve to which the ray of light, reflected or refracted by another curve, are tangents, the reflecting or refracting curve and the luminous point being in one plane.
- adjective See under
Lime . - adjective (Chem.) the solid hydroxides potash, KOH, and soda, NaOH, or solutions of the same.
- adjective nitrate of silver, lunar caustic.
- adjective (Optics) a surface to which rays reflected or refracted by another surface are tangents. Caustic curves and surfaces are called
catacaustic when formed by reflection, anddiacaustic when formed by refraction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Capable of
burning ,corroding ordestroying organic tissue - adjective of language, etc.
sharp ,bitter ,cutting ,biting ,sarcastic - noun Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an
escharotic . - noun optics, computer graphics The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
- noun mathematics The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
- noun informal, chemistry
caustic soda
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any chemical substance that burns or destroys living tissue
- adjective harsh or corrosive in tone
- adjective of a substance, especially a strong acid; capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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While on this subject of caustic potash, it cannot be too often repeated that _caustic potash_ is a totally different article to _caustic soda_, though just like it in appearance, and therefore often sold as such.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 360, November 25, 1882 Various
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The common caustic, called _lunar caustic_, is a compound formed by the union of nitric acid and silver; and it is supposed to owe its caustic qualities to the oxygen contained in the nitric acid.
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The term caustic to a tender ear (and I conceive none feel more interested in this inquiry than the anxious guardians of a nursery) may sound harsh and unpleasing, but every solicitude that may arise on this account will no longer exist when it is understood that the pustule, in a state fit to be acted upon, is then quite superficial, and that it does not occupy the space of a silver penny.
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The term caustic to a tender ear (and I conceive none feel more interested in this inquiry than the anxious guardians of a nursery) may sound harsh and unpleasing, but every solicitude that may arise on this account will no longer exist when it is understood that the pustule, in a state fit to be acted upon, is then quite superficial, and that it does not occupy the space of a silver penny. 25
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The term caustic to a tender ear (and I conceive none feel more interested in this inquiry than the anxious guardians of a nursery) may sound harsh and unpleasing, but every solicitude that may arise on this account will no longer exist when it is understood that the pustule, in a state fit to be acted upon, is then quite superficial, and that it does not occupy the space of
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) Various
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The term caustic to a tender ear (and I conceive none feel more interested in this inquiry than the anxious guardians of a nursery) may sound harsh and unpleasing, but every solicitude that may arise on this account will no longer exist when it is understood that the pustule, in a state fit to be acted upon, is then quite superficial, and that it does not occupy the space of a silver penny.
II. Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae, or Cow-Pox. 1799 1909
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Vitriol is what we call a caustic-a liquid that burns.
A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005
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When the water receded, their focus was on rebuilding their house, not on what the floodwaters left behind, an 8-inch coating of mud with an orange layer of what they described as caustic sodium.
theadvertiser.com - 2010
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KOLONTAR, Hungary - The disaster that buried three Hungarian villages in caustic red sludge last week is deepening the gloom of a country gripped by recession, polarization and the near-ubiquitous feeling that its people are doomed to be victims of calamity.
Hungarian sludge disaster darkens mood George Jahn 2010
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KOLONTAR, Hungary - The disaster that buried three Hungarian villages in caustic red sludge last week is deepening the gloom of a country gripped by recession, polarization and the near-ubiquitous feeling that its people are doomed to be victims of calamity.
Hungarian sludge disaster darkens mood George Jahn 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word caustic
"The curved surface to which all the rays of a conical pencil of light entering a refractive medium are tangential." --CD&C
March 16, 2012
guitar commented on the word caustic
Harsh and scathingly sarcastic
July 8, 2014