caustic
IPA: kˈɑstɪk
noun
- Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
- (optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
- (mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
- (informal, chemistry) Caustic soda.
adjective
- Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
- (of language, etc.) Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
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Examples of "caustic" in Sentences
- Vitriol is what we call a caustic-a liquid that burns.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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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