Adjacent Words

Efflorescence definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EFFLORES'CENCE, n. In botany,the time of flowering; the season when a plant shows its first blossoms.
1. Among physicians, a redness of the skin; eruptions; as in rash, measles, small pox, scarlatina, etc.
2. In chimistry, the formation of small white threads, resembling the sublimated matter called flower, on the surface of certain bodies, as salts. This is properly a shooting out of minute spicular crystals, called sometimes a saline vegetation, as that of the sulphate of magnesia on the deserts of Siberia, and of natron in Egypt. In butter much salted, the salt shoots in spiculae, and an efflorescence is often seen on walls formed with plaster. In some species of salts, as in sulphate and carbonate of soda, the efflorescence consists of a fine white dust. This kind of efflorescence is the contrary of deliquescence. In the latter, the saline crystals decompose the air, or rather abstract moisture from it; in the former, the atmosphere decomposes the saline crystals, and the water of crystallization is abstracted from the salts.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the period of greatest prosperity or productivity [syn: flower, prime, peak, heyday, bloom, blossom, efflorescence, flush]
2: any red eruption of the skin [syn: rash, roseola, efflorescence, skin rash]
3: the time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms [syn: blossoming, flowering, florescence, inflorescence, anthesis, efflorescence]
4: a powdery deposit on a surface [syn: efflorescence, bloom]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1626 1. a. the action or process of developing and unfolding as if coming into flower ; blossoming <periods of…intellectual and artistic efflorescence — Julian Huxley> b. an instance of such development c. fullness of manifestation ; culmination 2. the period or state of flowering 3. the process or product of efflorescing chemically • efflorescent adjective

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Efflorescence Ef`flo*res"cence, n. [F. efflorescence.] 1. (Bot.) Flowering, or state of flowering; the blooming of flowers; blowth. 2. (Med.) A redness of the skin; eruption, as in rash, measles, smallpox, scarlatina, etc. 3. (Chem.) (a) The formation of the whitish powder or crust on the surface of efflorescing bodies, as salts, etc. (b) The powder or crust thus formed.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Flowering, bloom, blossoming. 2. Flowering-time, time of blossoming, period of bloom. 3. Pulverulence (of the surface).