potash
pronunciation
How to pronounce potash in British English:
UK [ˈpɒtæʃ]
How to pronounce potash in American English:
US [ˈpɑtæʃ]
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- Noun:
- a potassium compound often used in agriculture and industry
Word Origin
- potash
- potash: [17] Potassium carbonate was originally obtained by burning wood or other vegetable matter, soaking the ashes in water, and evaporating the resulting liquid in iron pots. The resulting substance was hence called in early modern Dutch potasschen, literally ‘pot ashes’, and the word was adopted into English as potash. From it, or its French relative potasse, the chemist Sir Humphry Davy coined in 1807 the term potassium for the metallic element which occurs in potash.=> ash, pot, potassium
- potash (n.)
- 1751, earlier -pot-ashes (1640s), a loan-translation of older Dutch potaschen, literally "pot ashes" (16c.); so called because it was originally obtained by soaking wood ashes in water and evaporating the mixture in an iron pot. Compare German Pottasche, Danish potaske, Swedish pottaska, all also from Dutch. See also potassium. French potasse (1570s), Italian potassa are Germanic loan-words. The original plural was pot-ashes.
Example
- 1. But canada has lots more oil than potash .
- 2. Other chinese bids for potash corp. could yet emerge .
- 3. Potash is set to boom , it insists .
- 4. Strikes have paralysed the privatised potash and phosphate mines .
- 5. The potash price has not fallen anywhere close to the cost of existing production .