| 释义 |
deliquescent, a.|dɛlɪˈkwɛsənt|
[mod. ad. L. dēliquēscent-em, pr. pple. of dēliquēscĕre to deliquesce. So in mod.F. (1783 in Hatzf.).]
1. Chem. That deliquesces; having the property of melting or becoming liquid by absorption of moisture from the air.
1791Edin. New Disp. 381 Mild fixed alkali is..considerably deliquescent. 1812–6J. Smith Panorama Sc. & Art II. 482 A salt is deliquescent, when it has a greater attraction for water than the air, as it will in that case take water from the air. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. iv. (1873) 66 Those salts answer best for preserving cheese which contain most of the deliquescent chlorides.
2. a. Biol. Melting away in the process of growth or of decay: see deliquesce 1 b.
1874Cooke Fungi 28 It is very difficult to observe the structure of the hymenium, on account of its deliquescent nature.
b. Bot. Branching in such a way that the main stem or axis is, as it were, dissolved in ramifications.
1866Treas. Bot., Deliquescent..as the head of an oak tree. 1880Gray Struct. Bot. iii. §3. 49 Thus the trunk is dissolved into branches, or is deliquescent, as in the White Elm.
3. humorously. Dissolving (in perspiration).
1837Syd. Smith Let. Singleton Wks. 1859 II. 294/1 Striding over the stiles to Church, with a second-rate wife—dusty and deliquescent—and four parochial children, full of catechism and bread and butter. a1876M. Collins Pen Sketches I. 180 The dusty and deliquescent pedestrian. 1937V. D. Scudder On Journey i. iv. 83 ‘Laissez Faire’ was in its hey-day then; it is deliquescent now, though it lingers in the liking for ‘Rugged Individualism’. 1947T. H. White Elephant & Kangaroo (1948) xvii. 144 A ghostly figure of the Virgin Mary... It was ghostly because Mrs. O'Callaghan had taken it into her head to give it a vigorous scrubbing..and this had taken off the paint. It had also taken off most of the left cheek, so that the Virgin now hoved in her shadowy corner, chalk-white, leperous and deliquescent. |