The Wonderful World Of Words, 3/31/17

in #writing8 years ago

My grandmothers are full of memories, smelling of soap and onions and wet clay, with veins rolling roughly over quick hands, they have many clean words to say, my grandmothers were strong.


--Margaret Walker





DEFINITION:

Adjective
Soapy. Capable of being or resembling soap

ETYMOLOGY/ORIGIN:

1700-10
Latin (sāpōn- "soap" + -āceus "having the nature of")

PRONUNCIATION:

[sap-uh-ney-shuh s]
LISTEN

SCRABBLE SCORE:

15

USAGE AND EXAMPLES

Different vegetables very evidently exhibit by nature a SAPONACEOUS quality in their composition, of which soap-wort, the soap-berry tree (sapindus saponaria), and the common nightshade, may be adduced as instances.

--A Dictionary of Practical and Theoretical Chemistry
by William Nicholson, 1808

As the water obtained in the mines and used in the treatment of the ores is usually hard, and would therefore require a large quantity of the SAPONACEOUS substance for the purpose destroying the surface tension. The soap is soluble in the milling-water, and mixes with the whole of it, so that by subsequently precipitating or coagulating the soap I can secure, in the manner above referred to, the finer particles of gold which are in suspension in the water.

--Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, 1895






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Wow, I thought it meant wise-ass.

He was very saponaceous in his answer.