Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To roast or calcine (crystals or salts) until they emit a crackling sound or stop crackling.
- intransitive verb To make a crackling sound when roasted.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To crackle, as salt when roasting.
- To roast or calcine in a strong heat, so as to cause a continual bursting or crackling of the substance: as, to
decrepitate salt.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To roast or calcine so as to cause a crackling noise.
- intransitive verb To crackle, as salt in roasting.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
roast (asalt ormineral ) until it stopscrackling in the fire. - verb intransitive Of
salts andminerals , tocrackle when heated, indicating a sudden breakdown of their particles.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb to roast or calcine so as to cause to crackle or until crackling stops
- verb undergo decrepitation and crackle
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[New Latin dēcrepitāre, dēcrepitāt- : Latin dē-, de- + Latin crepitāre, to crackle, frequentative of crepāre, to burst, crack.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From mediaeval Latin decrepitare, from Latin de- + crepitare.
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Examples
-
The crystals are in the form of small cubes and contain no water of crystallization; some water is, however, held in cavities in the crystals and causes the salt to decrepitate when heated.
An Elementary Study of Chemistry William McPherson
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Heated to rednefs for half an hour, it does not decrepitate, but lofes 45 per ct. of its weight.
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