Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to heat.
  • adjective Of or relating to calories.
  • noun A hypothetically indestructible, uncreatable, highly elastic, self-repellent, all-pervading fluid formerly thought responsible for the production, possession, and transfer of heat.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to heat or the principle of heat.
  • noun The name given to a supposed subtle imponderable fluid to which the sensation and phenomena of heat were formerly attributed; hence, heat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physics) The principle of heat, or the agent to which the phenomena of heat and combustion were formerly ascribed; -- not now used in scientific nomenclature, but sometimes used as a general term for heat.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to caloric.
  • adjective a kind of engine operated by heated air.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective US, UK rare relating to calories
  • adjective US, UK rare relating to or producing heat or other energy
  • noun obsolete the hypothetical medium of heat

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to calories in food
  • adjective relating to or associated with heat

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French calorique, from Latin calor, heat; see kelə- in Indo-European roots.]

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