isinglass
pronunciation
How to pronounce isinglass in British English:
UK ['aɪzɪŋglɑ:s]
How to pronounce isinglass in American English:
US ['aɪzɪŋglɑs]
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- Noun:
- any of various minerals consisting of hydrous silicates of aluminum or potassium etc. that crystallize in forms that allow perfect cleavage into very thin leaves; used as dielectrics because of their resistance to electricity
Word Origin
- isinglass
- isinglass: [16] Early modern Dutch huysen meant ‘sturgeon’ and blas denoted ‘bladder’. Put them together and you had huysenblas, which English took over as a term not for the sturgeon’s air bladder itself, but for the gelatinous substance obtained from it – isinglass. In the process of adoption the more familiar glass was substituted for -blas.
- isinglass (n.)
- 1520s, said to be perversion of Dutch huysenblas, literally "sturgeon bladder," from huysen "sturgeon" + blas "bladder;" so called because the substance was obtained from it.
Example
- 1. Isinglass other than for stationery , household or alimentary purposes .
- 2. Health care products , qianli isinglass , eye ointment , calcium carbonate .
- 3. It must be reduced to a species of isinglass soup by this time , I should think , added the young lady , as she came out into the vestibule with the times newspaper in her hand .
- 4. Didn 't you put on any isinglass cream ?
- 5. Fish gelatine used as carrier for vitamin or carotenoid preparations , fish gelatine or isinglass used as fining agent in beer and wine .