Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having cleansing or purgative properties.
- noun Anything that aids in scouring or cleansing, as soap or fuller's earth.
- noun In medicine, a lotion or other application for cleansing a sore: in this sense nearly superseded by detergent.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A substance used in cleansing; a detergent.
- adjective Serving to cleanse, detergent.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The attitude that words may be discarded -- indeed, that words have caducity at all -- is not salubriously abstergent, but reflects an agrestic nisus that all cultivated English speakers must eschew.
Archive 2008-10-01 Angry Professor 2008
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The attitude that words may be discarded -- indeed, that words have caducity at all -- is not salubriously abstergent, but reflects an agrestic nisus that all cultivated English speakers must eschew.
A malison on the poor of spirit. Angry Professor 2008
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Some of them are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatory substances, — these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, and produce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particles congenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them.
Timaeus 2006
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Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter.
Timaeus 2006
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Earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only harsh, and if excessively abstergent, like potash and soda, bitter.
Timaeus 2006
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Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter.
TIMAEUS Plato 1949
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We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force; to get people out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set up on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be clean; overawe their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, and choose the generous expression, and make them know how much happier the generous behaviors are.
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Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter.
Timaeus 427? BC-347? BC Plato 1855
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Earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only harsh, and if excessively abstergent, like potash and soda, bitter.
Timaeus 427? BC-347? BC Plato 1855
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Some of them are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatory substances, -- these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, and produce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particles congenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them.
Timaeus 427? BC-347? BC Plato 1855
strev commented on the word abstergent
to do without detergent
August 20, 2009