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caustic

Pronunciation: /ˈkɔːstɪk/

The English word “caustic” has 6 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
  2. Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.

noun

  1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
  2. The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
  3. The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
  4. Caustic soda.

Etymology

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from Ancient Greek καυστικός (kaustikós, “burning”), from καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”) + -ικός (-ikós).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.