efflorescence

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Botany A state or time of flowering; anthesis.
2. n. A gradual process of unfolding or developing.
3. n. The highest point; the culmination. See Synonyms at bloom¹.
4. n. Chemistry The deposit that results from the process of efflorescing. Also called bloom¹.
5. n. Chemistry The process of efflorescing.
6. n. Chemistry A growth of salt crystals on a surface caused by evaporation of salt-laden water.
7. n. Pathology Redness, a rash, or an eruption on the skin.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of effiorescing or blossoming out; also, an aggregation of blossoms, or an appearance resembling or suggesting a mass of flowers.
2. n. In botany, the time or state of flowering; anthesis.
3. n. In medicine, a redness of the skin; a rash; eruption, as in measles, smallpox, scarlatina, etc.
4. n. In chem., the formation of small white threads or spiculæ, resembling the sublimated matter called flowers, on the surface of certain bodies, as salts, or on the surface of any permeable body or substance; the incrustation so formed.

Wiktionary

1. n. chemistry The formation of a powdery surface on crystals, as a hydrate is converted to anhydrous form by losing loosely bound water of crystallization to the atmosphere.
2. n. botany The production of flowers.
3. n. construction An encrustation of soluble salts, commonly white, deposited on the surface of stone, brick, plaster, or mortar; usually caused by free alkalies leached from mortar or adjacent concrete as moisture moves through it.
4. n. geology An encrustation of soluble salts, deposited on rock or soil by evaporation; often found in arid or geothermal environments.
5. n. metaphorical Rapid flowering of a culture or civilisation etc.
6. n. pathology A redness, rash, or eruption on the skin.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) Flowering, or state of flowering; the blooming of flowers; blowth.
2. n. (Med.) A redness of the skin; eruption, as in rash, measles, smallpox, scarlatina, etc.
3. n. The formation of the whitish powder or crust on the surface of efflorescing bodies, as salts, etc.
4. n. The powder or crust thus formed.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms
2. n. any red eruption of the skin
3. n. the period of greatest prosperity or productivity
4. n. a powdery deposit on a surface