Definitions

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

  • noun A system in which finely divided particles, which are approximately 1 to 1,000 millimicrons in size, are dispersed within a continuous medium in a manner that prevents them from being filtered easily or settled rapidly.
  • noun The particulate matter so dispersed.
  • noun The gelatinous stored secretion of the thyroid gland, consisting mainly of thyroglobulin.
  • noun Gelatinous material resulting from degeneration in diseased tissue.
  • adjective Of, relating to, containing, or having the nature of a colloid.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like glue or jelly.
  • In geology, partly amorphous: applied to minerals.
  • noun A substance in a peculiar state of aggregation characterized by slow diffusibility, permeability by crystalloid solutions, etc. See extract.

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

  • adjective Resembling glue or jelly; characterized by a jellylike appearance; gelatinous.
  • noun (Physiol. Chem.) A substance (as albumin, gum, gelatin, etc.) which is of a gelatinous rather than a crystalline nature, and which diffuses itself through animal membranes or vegetable parchment more slowly than crystalloids do; -- opposed to crystalloid.
  • noun (Med.) A gelatinous substance found in colloid degeneration and colloid cancer.
  • noun (Med.) a preparation of astringent and antiseptic substances with some colloid material, as collodion, for ready use.

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

  • adjective Glue-like.
  • noun chemistry A stable system of two phases, one of which is dispersed in the other in the form of very small droplets or particles.
  • noun meteorology An intimate mixture of two substances one of which, called the dispersed phase (or colloid), is uniformly distributed in a finely divided state throughout the second substance, called the dispersion medium (or dispersing medium). The dispersion medium may be a gas, a liquid, or a solid, and the dispersed phase may also be any of these, with the exception that one does not speak of a colloidal system of one gas in another. A system of liquid or solid particles colloidally dispersed in a gas is called an aerosol. A system of solid substances or water-insoluble liquids colloidally dispersed in liquid water is called a hydrosol.
  • noun geology A particle less than 1 micron in diameter, following the Wentworth scale

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

  • noun a mixture with properties between those of a solution and fine suspension

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek κόλλα (kolla, "glue") + -oid.

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Examples

  • When the secreting elements increase out of proportion to the stroma, numerous rounded or irregular spaces filled with a thick yellow colloid material are formed in the substance of the goitre -- _colloid goitre_.

    Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. Alexander Miles 1893

  • Early work in colloid chemistry had also been carried out by Wolfgang Ostwald, son of the 1909 Laureate Wilhelm Ostwald, but this was not of a caliber earning him a Nobel Prize.

    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Development of Modern Chemistry 2010

  • If the mass concentration of the colloid is known, it is easy to obtain the mass of the particles, and from this - assuming, for example, a spherical shape and normal specific gravity - the size can be calculated.

    Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1925 - Presentation Speech 1966

  • (A colloid is a stable suspension of silver particles in water.)

    Alison Rose Levy: Is Silver the Solution? 2008

  • There is no life without chemical reactions, and yet chemical reaction is not life; there is no life without what biologists call the colloid state, and yet the colloid state is not life.

    In the Noon of Science 1969

  • In passing it may be mentioned that the name colloid originates precisely from kolla, the Greek word for glue.

    Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1925 - Presentation Speech 1966

  • There is no life without chemical reactions, and yet chemical reaction is not life; there is no life without what biologists call the colloid state, and yet the colloid state is not life.

    In the Noon of Science 1912

  • There is no life without chemical reactions, and yet chemical reaction is not life; there is no life without what biologists call the colloid state, and yet the colloid state is not life.

    In the Noon of Science 1912

  • Such mastication appears to liberate the ouabain from the bark and mix it with saliva to form a coarse colloid, which is then specifically applied only to the lateral line hairs.

    USATODAY.com News 2011

  • Mucinous breast cancer, also known as colloid carcinoma, is a rare type of invasive breast cancer formed by mucus-producing cancer cells.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2009

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  • Is defined by the Udden-Wentworth scale as a suspension comprised of particles whose diameter is less than a micrometre.

    February 26, 2007