precipitate

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To cause to happen, especially suddenly or prematurely.
• intransitive verb To cause to fall down from a height; hurl downward.
• intransitive verb To put suddenly into a certain state or condition.
• intransitive verb Meteorology To cause (a form of water, as rain or snow) to fall from the air.
• intransitive verb Chemistry To cause (a solid substance) to be separated from a solution.
• intransitive verb Meteorology To fall from the air as a form of water, such as rain or snow.
• intransitive verb Chemistry To be separated from a solution as a solid.
• adjective Moving rapidly and heedlessly; speeding headlong.
• adjective Acting with or marked by excessive haste and lack of due deliberation. synonym: impetuous.
• adjective Occurring suddenly or unexpectedly.
• noun Chemistry A solid or solid phase separated from a solution.
• noun A product resulting from a process, event, or course of action.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To cast down headlong; fling from a precipice or height; hurl downward.
• To cause to fall as a sediment to the bottom of a vessel; reduce from a state of solution to a solid form, as by means of a reagent or chemical force.
• To drive forcibly; cause to hasten onward.
• To hasten; bring hastily to pass; hurry up: as, to precipitate a flight.
• To hasten intemperately or rashly; hence, to spoil; ruin.
• To fall headlong.
• To make haste; hurry; proceed without deliberation.
• In chem., to separate from a solution as a precipitate.
• Hurled headlong; plunging or rushing down, as by a steep descent; headlong.
• Steep; precipitous.
• Hasty; acting without due deliberation; rash.
• Hastily brought to pass; speedy; hurried; sudden.
• Synonyms and Precipitous now always expresses the physical attribute of a headlong steepness; precipitate the moral quality of being very hasty or overhasty. Other uses are obsolete or figurative.
• noun In Chem., any substance which, having been dissolved in a fluid, falls to the bottom of the vessel on the addition of some other substance capable of producing decomposition of the compound.
• noun Fusible white precipitate, colorless crystals, soluble in water (probably of the composition NHg₂C1.3NH₄Cl), which melt and then decompose on being heated: produced by boiling the infusible white precipitate with a solution of ammonium chlorid.
• noun An abbreviated term sometimes used to signify the bright yellow precipitate of ammonium phosphomolybdate frequently obtained in analysis as a proof of the presence of, or as the means of quantitatively determining, phosphorus or the radical of phosphoric acid and phosphates.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Chem.) An insoluble substance separated from a solution in a concrete state by the action of some reagent added to the solution, or of some force, such as heat or cold. The precipitate may fall to the bottom (whence the name), may be diffused through the solution, or may float at or near the surface.
• noun atmospheric moisture condensed as rain or snow, etc.; same as precipitation{5}.
• noun (Old. Chem) mercuric oxide (HgO) a heavy red crystalline powder obtained by heating mercuric nitrate, or by heating mercury in the air. Prepared in the latter manner, it was the precipitate per se of the alchemists.
• noun (Old Chem.) A white crystalline substance obtained by adding a solution of corrosive sublimate to a solution of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride); -- formerly called also fusible white precipitate.
• adjective Overhasty; rash.
• adjective Lacking due deliberation or care; hurried; said or done before the time.
• adjective Falling, flowing, or rushing, with steep descent; headlong.
• adjective obsolete Ending quickly in death; brief and fatal.
• intransitive verb rare To dash or fall headlong.
• intransitive verb rare To hasten without preparation.
• intransitive verb (Chem.) To separate from a solution as a precipitate. See Precipitate, n.
• transitive verb To throw headlong; to cast down from a precipice or height.
• transitive verb To urge or press on with eager haste or violence; to cause to happen, or come to a crisis, suddenly or too soon.
• transitive verb (Chem.) To separate from a solution, or other medium, in the form of a precipitate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A product resulting from a process, event, or course of action.
• noun chemistry A solid that exits the liquid phase of a solution.
• adjective headlong; falling steeply or vertically.
• adjective Very steep; precipitous.
• adjective With a hasty impulse; hurried; headstrong.
• adjective Moving with excessive speed or haste.
• adjective Performed very rapidly or abruptly.
• verb transitive To make something happen suddenly and quickly; hasten.