Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To melt away.
- intransitive verb To disappear as if by melting.
- intransitive verb Chemistry To dissolve and become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.
- intransitive verb To become fluid or soft on maturing, as certain fungal structures.
- intransitive verb To branch out into numerous subdivisions that lack a main axis, as the trunk of an elm.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To melt or dissolve gradually, or become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts; melt away.
- In vegetable histology, to liquefy or melt away gradually, as part of the normal process of growth: said of certain tissues, especially the gills of fungi of the genus Coprinus. It differs from the analogous process in salts, being a vital phenomenon.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb (Chem.) To dissolve gradually and become liquid by attracting and absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts, acids, and alkalies.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive To
melt anddisappear . - verb intransitive, chemistry To become
liquid by absorbingwater from theatmosphere .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb melt or become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air
- verb melt away in the process of decay
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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In first place is "I, Raptor" by Brenda Levy Tate of Pen Shells; in second "deliquesce" by Lynze of Salt Dreams, and in third place, Susan B. McDonough's poem "Double Vision" workshopped at Blueline Poetry Forum.
Archive 2009-03-01 Rus Bowden 2009
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We are fleeting shadows; we deliquesce like ice; and there is only time, in the narrow span of hours between birth and death, to stand, to walk — tofly.
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Brachyuran Shifter ships poured themselves though the Dreen wormhole; in seconds they would deliquesce to reform light years away.
365 tomorrows » 2008 » June : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2008
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I let the oysters slide down my throat, the foie gras poêlé deliquesce onto my tongue.
Dreaming in French Megan McAndrew 2009
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I let the oysters slide down my throat, the foie gras poêlé deliquesce onto my tongue.
Dreaming in French Megan McAndrew 2009
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I let the oysters slide down my throat, the foie gras poêlé deliquesce onto my tongue.
Dreaming in French Megan McAndrew 2009
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As the boundary between online games, online worlds, and even the real world all starts to deliquesce, here's an interesting essay on what the author, Jesper Juul, calls "open games":
Archive 2007-01-01 glyn moody 2007
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The old local order has been broken up or is now being broken up all over the earth, and everywhere societies deliquesce, everywhere men are afloat amidst the wreckage of their flooded conventions, and still tremendously unaware of the thing that has happened.
A Modern Utopia Herbert George 2006
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We would deliquesce into history like my watery paintings.
Kalooki Nights Howard Jacobson 2006
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Lovecraft story, they deliquesce into a pool of black ink which can still spread the spores.
Archive 2006-08-01 2006
johnmperry commented on the word deliquesce
antonym might be effloresce
August 26, 2008
MaryW commented on the word deliquesce
Sarah Krasnostein, The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017), ch. 14January 28, 2019