Adjacent Words

Niter definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

NI'TER, n. [In Hebrew, the verb under which this word appears signifies to spring, leap, shake, and to strip or break; in Ch. to strip or to fall off; in Syriac, the same; in Sam. to keep, to watch or guard.] A salt, called also salt-peter [stone-salt,] and in the modern nomenclature of chimistry, nitrate of potash. It exists in large quantities in the earth, and is continually formed in inhabited places, on walls sheltered from rain, and in all situations where animal matters are decomposed, under stables and barns, etc. It is of great use in the arts; is the principal ingredient in gunpowder, and is useful in medicines, in preserving meat, butter, etc. It is a white substance, and has an acrid, bitterish taste.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (KNO3) used especially as a fertilizer and explosive [syn: potassium nitrate, saltpeter, saltpetre, niter, nitre]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English nitre natron, from Middle French, from Latin nitrum, from Greek nitron, from Egyptian n{tuline}ry Date: 1667 1. potassium nitrate 2. archaic Chile saltpeter

Oxford Reference Dictionary

US var. of NITRE.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Niter Ni"ter, Nitre Ni"tre, n. [F. nitre, L. nitrum native soda, natron, Gr. ?; cf. Ar. nit?n, natr?n natron. Cf. Natron.] 1. (Chem.) A white crystalline semitransparent salt; potassium nitrate; saltpeter. See Saltpeter. 2. (Chem.) Native sodium carbonate; natron. [Obs.] For though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me. --Jer. ii. 22. Cubic niter, a deliquescent salt, sodium nitrate, found as a native incrustation, like niter, in Peru and Chili, whence it is known also as Chili saltpeter. Niter bush (Bot.), a genus (Nitraria) of thorny shrubs bearing edible berries, and growing in the saline plains of Asia and Northern Africa.