Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In chem. and pharmacy, and in chemical industries, water which has contained dissolved substances, and which remains after a part or the whole of these substances has crystallized or has been precipitated in an amorphous condition. Also called mother-liquor, mother-lye, and mothers.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The first Monera were formed in the sea by spontaneous generation, as crystals are formed in the mother-water.

    The Evolution of Man — Volume 2 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

  • -- This is one of the simple chemical bodies which was discovered in 1812 by M. Courtois, of Paris, a manufacturer of saltpetre, who found it in the mother-water of that salt.

    American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype 1853

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