Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A pungent colorless flammable gaseous compound, CH2O, the simplest and most reactive aldehyde, used for manufacturing melamine and phenolic resins, fertilizers, dyes, and embalming fluids and in aqueous solution as a preservative and disinfectant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A gas, CH2O. It can be obtained in several ways, as, for example, by leading a mixture of vapor of methyl-alcohol, CH4O, and air over a heated platinum spiral.

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

  • noun (Chem.) A colorless, volatile liquid, H2CO, resembling acetic or ethyl aldehyde, and chemically intermediate between methyl alcohol and formic acid.

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

  • noun organic chemistry The simplest aldehyde, H-CHO, a colourless gas having many industrial applications; it dissolves in water to give formalin.

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

  • noun a colorless poisonous gas; made by the oxidation of methanol

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[form(ic acid) + aldehyde.]

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