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  1. soap love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.
  2. n. A metallic salt of a fatty acid, as of aluminum or iron.
  3. n. Slang Money, especially that which is used for bribery.
  4. n. A soap opera.
  5. v. To treat or cover with or as if with soap.
  6. v. Informal To softsoap; cajole.
  7. v. Slang To bribe.
  8. idiom. no soap Slang Not possible or permissible.
  9. idiom. no soap Slang Unsuccessful; futile.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A chemical compound in common domestic use for washing and cleansing, made by the union of certain fatty acids with a salifiable base. Fats and fixed oils consist of fatty acids combined with glycerin. On treating them with a strong base, like potash or soda, glycerin is set free, and the fatty acid combines with the strong base and forms a soap. Soap is of two kinds—soluble soap, in which the base is potash, soda, or ammonia, and insoluble soap, whose base is an earth or a metallic oxid. Only the soluble soaps dissolve readily in water and have detergent qualities. Insoluble soaps are used only in pharmacy for liniments or plasters. Of the fats, stearates make the hardest, oleates the softest soaps; and of the bases, soda makes the hardest and least soluble, and potash the softest and most soluble. Perfumes are occasionally added, or various coloring matters are stirred in while the soap is semi-fluid. White soaps are generally made of olive-oil and soda. Common household soaps are made chiefly of soda and tallow. Yellow soap is composed of tallow, rosin, and soda, to which some palm-oil is occasionally added. (See rosin-soap.) Mottled soap is made by simply adding mineral and other colors during the manufacture of ordinary hard soap. Marine soap, known as salt-water soap, which has the property of dissolving as well in salt water as in fresh, is made of palm- or cocoanut-oil and soda. Soft soaps are made with potash, instead of soda, and whale-, seal-, or olive-oil, or the oils of linseed, hemp-seed, rape-seed, etc., with the addition of a little tallow. Excellent soaps are made from palm-oil and soda. A solution of soap in alcohol, with camphor and a little essential oil added to scent it, forms a soft ointment called opodeldoc, now superseded by soap-liniment, a similar preparation, which is liquid. Medicinal soap, when pure, is prepared from caustic soda and either olive- or almond-oil. It is chiefiy employed to form pills of a gently aperient antacid action.
  2. n. A kind of pomade for coloring the hair.
  3. n. Smooth words; persuasion; flattery: more often called soft soap.
  4. n. Money secretly used for political purposes.
  5. n. white Castile soap, which contains 21 per cent of water, is of a pale grayish-white color, giving no oily stains to paper, free from rancid odor, and entirely soluble in alcohol or water; and.
  6. n. marbled Castile soap, which is harder and more alkaline, contains 14 per cent. of water, and has veins or streaks of ferruginous matter running through it. Formerly also, erroneously, castle-soap; also Spanish soap.
  7. n. See def. 3.
  8. To rub or treat with soap; apply soap to.
  9. To use smooth words to; flatter.
  10. n. The fatty matter obtained by adding just enough acid to a soap solution to cause the separation of the fatty acids.
  11. In calico-printing, to remove, by means of soap, impurities from (cloth) before bleaching; also, after printing, to remove the thickening used in the color.

Wiktionary

  1. n. uncountable A substance able to mix with both oil and water, used for cleaning, often in the form of solid bar or in liquid form, derived from fats or made synthetically.
  2. n. countable, informal A soap opera.
  3. v. transitive To apply soap to in washing.
  4. v. transitive, informal To cover with soap as a prank.
  5. v. transitive, informal To be discreet about (a topic).
  6. v. slang, dated To flatter; to wheedle.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A substance which dissolves in water, thus forming a lather, and is used as a cleansing agent. Soap is produced by combining fats or oils with alkalies or alkaline earths, usually by boiling, and consists of salts of sodium, potassium, etc., with the fatty acids (oleic, stearic, palmitic, etc.). See the Note below, and cf. saponification. By extension, any compound of similar composition or properties, whether used as a cleaning agent or not.
  2. v. To rub or wash over with soap.
  3. v. Slang To flatter; to wheedle.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. street names for gamma hydroxybutyrate
  2. v. rub soap all over, usually with the purpose of cleaning
  3. n. a cleansing agent made from the salts of vegetable or animal fats
  4. n. money offered as a bribe

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English sope, sape, from Old English sāpe ("soap, salve"), from Proto-Germanic *saipōn, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *seyp- (“to pour out, drip, trickle, strain”). Cognate with Scots saip, sape ("soap"), West Frisian sjippe ("soap"), Dutch zeep ("soap"), Low German sepe ("soap"), German Seife ("soap"), Swedish såpa ("soap"), Icelandic sápa ("soap"). Related also to Old English sāp ("amber, resin, pomade, unguent"), Latin sēbum ("tallow, fat, grease"). See seep. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English sope, from Old English sāpe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Remove or destroy 2-6 minutes Before donning sterile surgeon's chlorhexidine, iodine and iodophors. transient microorganisms gloves for surgical procedures. tt chloroxylenol [PCMX], triclosan) and reduce resident flora Follow manufacturer (persistent effect) instructions for Water and non-antimicrobial soap (e.g., surgical hand-scrub plain soap¶) followed by an alcohol-based product with surgical hand-scrub product with persistent activity±** persistent activity”

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows

  • “Technically speaking, however, the meaning of the term soap is considerably restricted, being generally limited to the combinations of fatty acids and alkalies, obtained by treating various animal or vegetable fatty matters, or the fatty acids derived therefrom, with soda or potash, the former giving hard soaps, the latter soft soaps.”

    The Handbook of Soap Manufacture

  • “This soap is an easy three layer loaf soap, with some sparkles thrown in for fun.”

    President's Day Soap

  • “Because you will be embedding the glitter strips in the soap, make sure that the soap is a cool temperature.”

    President's Day Soap

  • “This means that the soap is actually some form of lathering chemical (like SLS or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) pressed together to form a bar of soap. "(when they give you a disbelieving look, head into this section)" Seriously!”

    Why Does Your Soap Cost So Much?

  • “Happily the soap is also infused with peppermint and citrus scents so you don't end up smelling like a jar of coffee beans.”

    Start your day right, with--

  • “This soap is the creation of Nizzy in Oz. Children love this soap since it floats.”

    FLOAP soap

  • “While not my most favorite scent, the soap is an artist marvel.”

    Archive 2007-11-01

  • “He was a materialist, and described himself as one: he disbelieved in what he called the soap-bubble theory, that somewhere in us there is something like a bubble, which controls everything, and is everything, and escapes invisible and gaseous to some other place after death.”

    Catharine Furze

  • “This month in soap: David Platt's collision course with disaster continues in Coronation Street; doom and gloom reigns in EastEnders; while Emmerdale is all incest, bigamy and farming”

    The Guardian: Jim Shelley's World of lather

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‘soap’ has been looked up 2956 times, loved by 1 person, added to 30 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 6.