different between caustic vs precipitate

English

Etymology

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from the Ancient Greek ????????? (kaustikós, “burning”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kôs't?k, k?s't?k, IPA^(key): /?k??st?k/, /?k?st?k/
• Rhymes: -??st?k

Adjective

caustic (comparative more caustic, superlative most caustic)

1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
2. (of language, etc.) Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
   • 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette

     Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical

   • c. 1930, W.H.Auden, "The Quest"

     though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great

Synonyms

• (capable of destroying tissue): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing
• (severe, sharp): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spiteful, vitriolic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

caustic (plural caustics)

1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
2. (optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
3. (mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
4. (informal, chemistry) Caustic soda.

Derived terms

• lunar caustic

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• præcipitate (obsolete)

Etymology 1

From Latin praecipitatus, from praecipit? (“throw down, hurl down, throw headlong”), from praeceps (“head foremost, headlong”), from prae (“before”) + caput (“head”).

Pronunciation

Verb:

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /p???s?p?te?t/, /p???s?p?te?t/

Adjective:

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /p???s?p?t?t/, /p???s?p?t?t/

common but often proscribed:

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /p???s?p?te?t/, /p???s?p?te?t/

Verb

precipitate (third-person singular simple present precipitates, present participle precipitating, simple past and past participle precipitated)

1. (transitive) To make something happen suddenly and quickly.

   Synonyms: advance, accelerate, hasten, speed up

   • 1737, Richard Glover, Leonidas Book 4

     Back to his sight precipitates her steps.

   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Ambition

     if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate their designs, and prove dangerous

2. (transitive) To throw an object or person from a great height.

   Synonyms: throw, fling, cast; see also Thesaurus:throw
3. (transitive) To send violently into a certain state or condition.

4. (intransitive, chemistry) To come out of a liquid solution into solid form.

5. (transitive, chemistry) To separate a substance out of a liquid solution into solid form.
6. (intransitive, meteorology) To have water in the air fall to the ground, for example as rain, snow, sleet, or hail; be deposited as condensed droplets.

   Troponyms: rain, snow, hail

7. (transitive) To cause (water in the air) to condense or fall to the ground.

   • The light vapour of the preceding evening had been precipitated by the cold.

8. (intransitive) To fall headlong.
9. (intransitive) To act too hastily; to be precipitous.

Synonyms

• headlong

Derived terms

Related terms

• precipice
• precipitation

Translations

Adjective

precipitate (comparative more precipitate, superlative most precipitate)

1. headlong; falling steeply or vertically.

   Synonyms: headlong, precipitant, precipitous

2. Very steep; precipitous.

   Synonym: brant

3. With a hasty impulse; hurried; headstrong.

   Synonyms: hotheaded, impetuous, rash; see also Thesaurus:reckless

4. Moving with excessive speed or haste; overly hasty.
5. Performed very rapidly or abruptly.

   Synonyms: abrupt, precipitous, subitaneous; see also Thesaurus:sudden

Derived terms

• precipitately
• precipitateness

Translations

Etymology 2

From New Latin praecipitatum. Doublet of precipitato.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /p???s?p?t?t/, /p???s?p?t?t/
• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /p???s?p?te?t/, /p???s?p?te?t/

Noun

precipitate (plural precipitates)

1. a product resulting from a process, event, or course of action
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 381]:

     As for the musculature it is a precipitate of Spirit and the signature of the cosmos is in it.

2. (chemistry) a solid that exits the liquid phase of a solution

Translations

Related terms

• precipitous

Further reading

• precipitate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• precipitate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• precipitate at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Peripatetic, peripatetic

Italian

Adjective

precipitate f pl

1. feminine plural of precipitato

Verb 1

precipitate

1. second-person plural present of precipitare
2. second-person plural imperative of precipitare

Verb 2

precipitate f pl

1. feminine plural past participle of precipitare