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corrosive

UK/kəˈɹəʊsɪv/US/kəˈɹoʊsɪv/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,421 of 15,258neutral

Corrosive means able to eat away skin or metal. A corrosive liquid, corrosive fumes, a corrosive effect.

It is a hazard class with its own warning symbol, and corrosive substances damage on contact rather than by being swallowed. Figuratively it describes something that destroys slowly from within, as in the corrosive effect of distrust.

Thester11 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of corrosive

  1. 1adjectivecorrosiveAble to eat away skin or metal.B2+

    “Wear gloves when you handle battery acid, because it's highly corrosive.”

corrosive is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin corrodere means to gnaw away — cor, thoroughly, plus rodere, to gnaw. Rodent is a relative.

  1. Old French

    corrosif

  2. English, today

    corrosive

From Old French corrosif.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Chemistry & Elements

Practise this word

corrosive in the wild

  • The main types of irritant and/or corrosive products are: acids, bases, oxidizers and reducing agents, solvents, and alkylants.

    Chemical burn

  • Corrosion fatigue is fatigue in a corrosive environment.

    Corrosion fatigue

  • The effects of corrosive environments on the fatigue behavior of metals were studied as early as 1930.

    Corrosion fatigue

  • A corrosive material is a liquid or solid that causes full thickness destruction of human skin at the site of contact within a specified period of time.

    HAZMAT Class 8 Corrosive substances

  • A liquid that has a severe corrosion rate on steel or aluminum based on the criteria in 49CFR 173.137(c)(2) is also a corrosive material.

    HAZMAT Class 8 Corrosive substances

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.