Deliquesce (pronounced del-i-kwes)
(1) In physical chemistry, to become liquid by
absorbing moisture from the atmosphere and dissolving in it (best illustrated
by the behavior of certain salts).
(2) To melt away; to disappear (used literally
& figuratively).
(3) In botany, branching so the stem is lost in
branches (as is typical in deciduous trees).
(4) In mycology (of the fruiting body of a
fungus), becoming liquid as a phase of its life cycle.
1756: From the Latin dēliquēscere (to become liquid), the construct being dē- + liquēscere (to liquefy; liquescent). In scientific literature, the adjective deliquescent
(liquefying in air) is the most commonly used form. It was from the Latin deliquescentem (nominative deliquescens),
present participle of deliquescere (to
melt away), the construct being de- + liquesco (I melt) and familiar in
French also as déliquescent. The de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix). It imparted the sense of (1) reversal,
undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) from, off. In French the dé- prefix was used to make antonyms (as un- & dis- function in
English) and was partially inherited from the Old and Middle French des-, from the Latin dis- (part), the ultimate source being
the primitive Indo-European dwís and
partially borrowed from Latin dē-. The figurative sense of “apt to dissolve or
melt away” was in use by 1837 while the verb deliquesce appears not to have
been used thus until the late 1850s. In
scientific literature, the adjective deliquescent (liquefying in air) is the
most commonly used form. It was from the
Latin deliquescentem (nominative deliquescens), present participle of deliquescere (to melt away), the
construct being de- + liquesco (I melt) and familiar in French
also as déliquescent. The figurative sense of “apt to dissolve or
melt away” was in use by 1837 while the verb deliquesce appears not to have
been used thus until the late 1850s. Deliquesce, deliquesced & deliquescing
are verbs, deliquescent is an adjective, deliquescence is a noun and
deliquescently is an adverb; the noun plural is deliquescences.
A footnote to the addition of deliquesce to
scientific English is a tale of the chance intersection of politics and
chemistry. Dr Charles Lucas (1713–1771)
was an Anglo-Irish physician who held the seat of Dublin City in the Irish
Parliament and was what now would be called “a radical”, dubbed at the time “Irish
Wilkes” (a nod to the English radical politician John Wilkes (1725–1797). His early career was as an apothecary and he
was shocked discover the fraud and corruption which permeated the industry and
in an attempt to reform the abuses published A Short Scheme for Preventing Frauds and Abuses in Pharmacy (1735)
which much upset his fellow apothecaries who were the beneficiaries of the
crooked ways but the parliament did respond and created legislation regulating standards
in medicines and providing for the inspection of the products; it was the first
of its kind in the English-speaking world and the ancestor of the elaborate framework
of rules today administered by entities such as the US FDA (Food & Drug
Administration. Encouraged, he later
published Pharmacomastix, or the Office,
Use, and Abuse of Apothecaries Explained (1741), the contents of which were
used by the parliament to make certain legislative amendments.
However, as well as a radical, Lucas was a idealist
and while the establishment was content to support him in matter of pills and
potions, when he intruded into areas which disturbed the political equilibrium,
they were less tolerant and, facing imprisonment, Lucas fled to the continent where
he’d decided to study medicine, graduating as a doctor in 1752. One of his first projects as a physician was
a study of the composition of certain mineral waters, substances then held to
possess some remarkable curative properties (something actually not without some
basis). To undertake his research he
visited a number of sites including Spa, Aachen in what is now North
Rhine-Westphalia and Bath in the English county of Somerset. The material he assembled and published as An Essay on Waters. In three Parts: (i) of
Simple Waters, (ii) of Cold Medicated Waters, (iii) of Natural Baths (1756)
and it was in this work that the verb “deliquesce” first appeared. Ever the “disturber” Dr Lucas’s tract upset
the medical establishment in much the same way two decades earlier he’d stirred
the enmity of the apothecaries, the cluster of physicians clustered around the
Bath spa angered the interloper hadn’t consulted with them on a topic over
which they asserted proprietorship.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
In chemistry, the companion word of deliquescence
is hygroscopy, both describing phenomena related to the ability of substances
to absorb moisture from the surrounding environment, but they differ in extent
and behavior. Hygroscopy refers to the
ability of a substance to absorb moisture from the air when exposed; hygroscopic
substances can attract and hold water molecules onto their surface but tend not
to dissolve. Many salts behave thus and
a well-known example of practical application is the silica gel, which, in
small porous packages, is often used as a desiccant to absorb moisture in
packaging. Deliquescence can be thought of an extreme form of hygroscopy (hydroscopy
taken to its natural conclusion) in that a substance which deliquesces not only
absorbs moisture from the air but also absorbs it to the point where it
dissolves completely in the absorbed water, forming a solution. In the natural environment, this happens most frequently
when the relative humidity of the surrounding air is high and the classic deliquescent
substances are salts like calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, zinc chloride,
ferric chloride, carnallite, potassium carbonate, potassium phosphate, ferric
ammonium citrate, ammonium nitrate, potassium hydroxide, & sodium hydroxide. Presumably because deliquescence is the extreme
form of hydroscopy it was the former which came to be used figuratively (dissolving
into “nothing”) while the latter did not.
At the chemical level, hygroscopy (a class in
which scientists include deliquescence as a sub-set) describes the phenomenon
of attracting and holding water molecules via either absorption or adsorption (the
adhesion of a liquid or gas on the surface of a solid material, forming a thin
film on the surface.) from the surrounding environment. Hygroscopy is integral to the biology of many
plant and animal species' attainment of hydration, nutrition, reproduction
and/or seed dispersal. Linguistically, hygroscopy
is quirky in that the construct is hygro- (moisture; humidity), from the Ancient
Greek ὑγρός (hugrós) (wet, moist) + -scopy (observation,
viewing), from the Ancient Greek σκοπέω (skopéō)
(to see (and the source of the Modern English “scope”) yet unlike other forms
suffixed by “-scopy”, it no longer conveys the sense of “viewing
or imaging”. Originally that was the case,
a hygroscope in the late eighteenth century understood as a device used to
measure humidity but in a wholly organic way this use faded (“dissolving deliquescently to nothing” as
it were) while hygroscopic (tending to retain moisture) & hygroscopy (the
ability to do so) endured. The modern instrument
used to measure humidity is hygrometer, the construct being hygro- + -meter (the
suffix from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron)
(measure) used to form the names of measuring devices.
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