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  1. flocculate love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To cause (soil) to form lumps or masses.
  2. v. To cause (clouds) to form fluffy masses.
  3. v. To form lumpy or fluffy masses.
  4. n. Something that has formed lumpy or fluffy masses.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. In entomology, bearing a flocculus or small bunch of curled hairs, as the trochanters of certain bees.
  2. To form visible loosed light masses, or flocculi, as of clay in soil-water or of nitrogenous substances in milk. The addition of lime or salt causes soil-water to flocculate; ammonia prevents the flocculation or breaks it up. A sheet of uniform stratus cloud often flocculates with numerous cirro-cumulus or alto-cumulus clouds arranged in rank and file.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To collect together in a loose aggregation like flocks (tufts) of wool.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. (Geol.) To aggregate into small lumps.
  2. adj. (Zoöl.) Furnished with tufts of curly hairs, as some insects.
  3. v. To convert into floccules or flocculent aggregates; to make granular or crumbly.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. form into an aggregated lumpy or fluffy mass
  2. v. cause to become a fluffy or lumpy aggregate

Etymologies

  1. From Latin flocculus, diminutive of floccus, a flock (tuft). (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “CONAN: I don't think we've ever used the word flocculate on the program before.”

    NPR: Assessing The BP Spill's Impact

  • “The Word of the Day for January 20, 2009 is: flocculate • \FLAH-kyuh-layt\ • verb”

    flocculate | clusterflock

  • “During fermentation, yeast cells flocculate and either rise to the top or sink to the bottom of the vat.”

    flocculate | clusterflock

  • “By the end of the 19th century, a whole word family had been formed, including the adjective “flocculent,” the noun “floccule,” and the verb “flocculate.””

    flocculate | clusterflock

  • “And one of their foods is something called marine snow, which is a sort of a flocculate particle, fluffy-like stuff that settles down.”

    NPR: Assessing The BP Spill's Impact

  • “Its amino acids are broken down into long strands, with a positive molecular charge able to flocculate the negatively charged yeast cells and pull them to the bottom of the vessel.”

    Simon & Schuster: SECRETS FROM THE MASTER BREWERS

  • “If dispersion is the problem the classic solution is to begin leaching with water of sufficiently high salinity to de-flocculate the soil (if such water is available), at the same time providing gypsum for displacement of sodium.”

    Chapter 9

  • “FLOCCULATION AND AGGREGATION: As a result of the cationic exchange and the increase in the quantity of electrolytes in the pore water, the soil grains flocculate and tend to accrete.”

    Chapter 7

  • “LIME: When the soil is too clayey, 1 to 2% lime can be added to flocculate the soil.”

    Chapter 10

  • “This was not crucial at the time as there were alternative sources of water available to the camp of 80,000 people and the fall-back option was to flocculate the river water.”

    7. Typical Scenarios

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hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. change
  1. modify
  1. alter

reverse dictionary (1)

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  1. flocculate

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‘flocculate’ has been looked up 1192 times, loved by 1 person, added to 21 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 17.