Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A white crystalline compound, C3H6N6, used in making melamine resins and waterproof coatings, for tanning leather, and as an additive to fertilizer to regulate the rate of nitrogen release. Melamine has also been used as an illicit and harmful additive to foodstuffs to increase the apparent amount of protein present based upon assays for nitrogen.
- noun A plastic made from melamine resin.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A colorless compound, formed, together with melam, by heating ammonium cyanate. It crystallizes in monoclinic prisms. Also called cyanuramide, triguanide, and triurethriamidin.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Chem.) A nitrogenous strongly basic chemical substance (C3H6N6), structurally 2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5-triazine, produced from several cyanogen compounds, and obtained as a white crystalline substance; -- formerly supposed to be produced by the decomposition of melam. Called also
cyanuramide . It is used as one of the starting components (together with formaldehyde) in the preparation of melamine resins, including the commercially marketedFormica (TM). It is solid at room temperature, and sublimes at temperatures approaching 250° C, decomposing at 345° C. Density 1.573.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun chemistry a strong
aromatic heterocyclic base , tri-amino-triazine , used, in combination withformaldehyde to manufacturemelamine resins such asFormica ™
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a white crystalline organic base; used mainly in making melamine resins
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Often, the term melamine is used both for the chemical substance as well as the plastic endproducts that contain the substance.
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Be careful Del, if it comes from wallyworld it may (likely) contain melamine and/or lead, for reasons unknown to me.
Do you prefer your home made jerky if so want to share the recipe? or store bought and which one? 2009
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Be careful Del, if it comes from wallyworld it may (likely) contain melamine and/or lead, for reasons unknown to me.
Do you prefer your home made jerky if so want to share the recipe? or store bought and which one? 2009
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Then the focus quickly shifted to a chemical called melamine, which is used primarily in the making of plastics.
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The pet food was largely poisoned by a chemical reaction which included a product called melamine, which is used in fertilizer and plastics, mixed with wheat glutin.
China Killed Your Dog; Now You and Your Kids are at Risk Too 2007
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An investigation showed that some milk suppliers were adding the industrial chemical melamine, which is used to make plastic, to their milk production to make it appear higher in protein.
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Just this past winter, more than 300,000 Chinese children were sickened, and at least six died, as a resulted of consuming milk deliberately laced with the industrial chemical melamine, which is used in manufacturing plastic products but also creates a false positive for protein testing.
Michael A. Santoro and Wendy Goldberg: Hillary Clinton Visits China: What Should Be On The Table 2009
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Zhang Yujun ran a workshop that produced a chemical called melamine that was reportedly the largest source of melamine in China.
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This episode got me thinking more about melamine, which is mostly associated with cheap white furniture we find at big box stores and hard plastic plates decorated with cartoon characters, and how it could have possibly ended up in food!
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China said this week that milk powder contaminated with melamine, which is used in plastics, had made at least 6,200 babies ill nationwide and killed four over a period of many months.
treeseed commented on the word melamine
Melamine resin dinnerware (plates, saucers, cups, bowls) was quite popular in the 1960s...the oxymoron "pretty ugly" describes the dinnerware well.
February 1, 2008