Definitions

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

  • noun A yellowish crystalline iodine compound, CHI3, used as an antiseptic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To apply iodoform to; impregnate with iodoform.
  • noun A solid compound (CHI3) analogous to chloroform, produced by the action of iodine with alkalis or alkali carbonates on alcohol.
  • noun This substance, much used in surgery, is now prepared electrolytically from a mixed solution of alcohol with an alkaline carbonate and iodide.

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

  • noun (Chem.) A yellow, crystalline, volatile substance, CI3H, having an offensive odor and sweetish taste, and analogous to chloroform. It is used in medicine as a healing and antiseptic dressing for wounds and sores.

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

  • noun chemistry A halogenated hydrocarbon, CHI3; a yellow crystalline compound, formerly used as a mild antiseptic

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

  • noun a yellowish crystalline solid with a penetrating odor; sometimes used as an antiseptic dressing
  • noun sweet smelling yellow solid haloform CHI3

Etymologies

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

[iodo– + form(yl).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

iodo- + -form

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Examples

  • The local action of iodoform (_iodoform dermatitis_) in some individuals is that of a decided irritant, bringing about a dermatitis, which often spreads much beyond the parts of application, and which in those eczematously inclined may result in a veritable and persistent eczema.

    Essentials of Diseases of the Skin Including the Syphilodermata Arranged in the Form of Questions and Answers Prepared Especially for Students of Medicine Henry Weightman Stelwagon 1886

  • A very efficacious and inexpensive powder is made by taking 5 parts of iodoform and 95 parts of sugar, making what is called iodoform sugar.

    Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877

  • It was a strange and frightful spectacle — the small, bunk-lined space, the floor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the swaying shadows lengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the thick air heavy with smoke and the smell of bodies and iodoform, and the inflamed faces of the men — half-men, I should call them.

    Chapter 26 2010

  • “One crude stretcher stood next to the other,” he wrote, “and all were occupied by moaning, sweating, deathly pale men, who were gasping for breath in the thick atmosphere of excrement and iodoform.”

    Human Smoke Nicholson Baker 2008

  • "One crude stretcher stood next to the other," he wrote, "and all were occupied by moaning, sweating, deathly pale men, who were gasping for breath in the thick atmosphere of excrement and iodoform."

    'Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization' 2008

  • Nobody liked Dr. McKinney either: there was a smell of iodoform about him and of stale horse piss.

    Archive 2007-04-01 hyperdave 2007

  • Nobody liked Dr. McKinney either: there was a smell of iodoform about him and of stale horse piss.

    From my Spam folder.... hyperdave 2007

  • His naive eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie and the smell of iodoform made an unpleasant impression upon me; I felt as though I were in vulgar company.

    The Wife 2004

  • But the odor of the drugs, iodoform and phenic acid, brought me back to a sense of reality.

    The Kreutzer Sonata 2003

  • In the years 1881-1883 he carried out important investigations on the action of iodoform, stating that it does not kill microbes but may neutralize the poisons given off by them, thus being antitoxic.

    Emil von Behring - Biography 1967

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