alkali

IPA: ˈæɫkʌɫaɪ

(chemistry) One of a class of caustic bases, such as soda, soda ash, caustic soda, potash, ammonia, and lithia, whose distinguishing characteristics are dissolving in alcohol and water, uniting with oils and fats to form soap, neutralizing and forming salts with acids, turning to brown several vegetable yellows, and changing reddened litmus to blue.
(Western US) Soluble mineral matter, other than common salt, contained in soils of natural waters.

Examples of "alkali" in Sentences

Strontium belongs to a group of elements known as the alkali earth metals.
Around 1990 Wieman drew up guidelines for how BEC could be achieved in alkali atoms.
Its atomic number is 55 and its symbol is Cs. It belongs to a group of elements called the alkali metals.
The state was achieved in alkali atom gases, in which the phenomenon can be studied in a very pure manner.
It belongs to a group of elements known as the alkali metals, such as sodium, potassium, cesium and lithium.
Lithium, the lightest metal, is in a group of elements called alkali metals or Group I elements and is silvery-white in color.
From Jabir we gain the word alkali, the distilling apparatus known as an alembic and – says Al-Khalili – perhaps even the word gibberish.
We put molasses in it, but that helped it very little; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the prominent taste and so it was unfit for drinking.
The name alkali metals is commonly applied to the family for the reason that the hydroxides of the most familiar members of the family, namely sodium and potassium, have long been called alkalis.