deliquesce, v.
(dɛlɪˈkwɛs)
[ad. L. dēliquēscĕre to melt away, dissolve, disappear, f. de- I. 3 + liquēscĕre to become liquid, melt, inceptive of liquēre to be liquid, clear, etc.]
intr.
1. Chem. To melt or become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts.
| 1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 14 They attract the humidity of the air, and deliquesce, or run liquid. 1780 Phil. Trans. LXX. 349 This pot-ash..deliquesces a little in moist air. 1876 Page Advd. Text-bk. Geol. xvi. 299 Pure chloride of sodium is not liable to deliquesce. |
b. Biol. To liquefy or melt away, as some parts of fungi or other plants of low organization, in the process of growth or of decay.
| 1836–9 Todd Cycl. Anat. II. 953 [The brain's] disposition to deliquesce when exposed..to the air. 1872 Oliver Elem. Bot. ii. 292 [Fungi] often deliquesce when mature. 1882 Vines Sachs' Bot. 272 Zoogonidia which are set free by the wall of the mother-cell becoming gelatinous and deliquescing. |
2. gen. To melt away (lit. and fig.). (Mostly humorous or affected.)
| 1858 O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t. xi. (1891) 256, I have known several very genteel idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen expressions. 1860 ― Elsie V. 107 Undue apprehensions..of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself..into puddles of creamy fluid. 1871 Jowett Plato I. 436 If while the man is alive the body deliquesces and decays. |
Hence deliˈquescing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1791 Phil. Trans. LXXXI. 330 Some of the deliquescing part of the mass. |