Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having the form or nature of air, or of an elastic invisible fluid; gaseous. The gases are aëriform fluids.
  • Figuratively, unsubstantial; unreal.

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

  • adjective Having the form or nature of air, or of an elastic fluid; gaseous. Hence fig.: Unreal.

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

  • adjective Pertaining to air, or having a form similar to that of air.
  • adjective Light, unsubstantial, or unstable.

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

  • adjective characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air
  • adjective resembling air or having the form of air

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

aeri- + -form.

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Examples

  • Humboldt extends this view to the case of earthquakes unaccompanied by eruptions; but I can hardly conceive it possible that the small quantity of aeriform fluids which then escape from the fissured ground can produce such remarkable effects.

    Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle 2003

  • Humboldt extends this view to the case of earthquakes unaccompanied by eruptions; but I can hardly conceive it possible that the small quantity of aeriform fluids which then escape from the fissured ground can produce such remarkable effects.

    Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle 2003

  • But aeriform matter still has density and weight, and this means that matter in this state combines the two opposing qualities.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • On page 214 he describes and figures an apparatus for taking the galvano-electric spark into fluid and aeriform substances.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 Various

  • Heat, therefore, does not rank as a fourth condition by the side of the solid, liquid and aeriform states, in the way that Fire ranks in the older conception by the side of Earth, Water and Air.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • Thus there is reason to describe also from the modern point of view the solid and liquid states as essentially 'cold', and the aeriform state as 'warm'.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • The reversed currents are, then, arrested during their passage; and, in order to collect them, it becomes necessary to considerably diminish the gaseous pressure of the aeriform conductor interposed in the discharge; to increase its conductivity; or to open to the current a very resistant metallic derivation.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 Various

  • With the help of these qualitative concepts we are now in a position to determine more clearly still the difference between the older and the modern conceptions: in particular the difference between the aeriform condition of matter, as we conceive of it to-day, and the element Air.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • Arguing thus, Priestley, of course, named the new aeriform substance _dephlogisticated air_, and thought of it as ordinary air deprived of some, or it might be all, of its phlogiston.

    The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry M. M. Pattison Muir

  • We know that this characteristic of matter diminishes gradually with its transition from the solid to the liquid and aeriform states.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

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