Definitions

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

  • adjective Intermediate in flow properties between solids and liquids; highly viscous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Fluid, but excessively viscous.
  • noun An excessively viscous fluid.

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

  • adjective Imperfectly fluid.

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

  • adjective Having properties intermediate between liquids and solids
  • noun Any substance with properties intermediate between those of a solid and a liquid.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

semi- +‎ fluid

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Examples

  • I told you that it was very early observed that the yeast plant consisted of a bag made up of the same material as that which composes wood, and of an interior semifluid mass which contains a substance, identical in its composition, in a broad sense, with that which constitutes the flesh of animals.

    Essays 2007

  • The chemist discovered that the yeast plant being composed of a sort of bag, like a bladder, inside which is a peculiar soft, semifluid material — the chemist found that this outer bladder has the same composition as the substance of wood, that material which is called “cellulose,” and which consists of the elements carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, without any nitrogen.

    Essays 2007

  • And not only was this gradually discovered, but it was found that these semifluid contents of the plant cell had, in many cases, a remarkable power of contractility quite like that of the substance of animals.

    Essays 2007

  • This fluid, along with the muscular churning actions of the stomach, helps transform food into a thick, semifluid mass that can be passed into the small intestine for digestion.

    stomach 2002

  • In coating, the sprue is covered with a semifluid slurry that soon hardens much like concrete.

    Strategic Management in Developing Countries Case Studies James E. Austin 2000

  • In coating, the sprue is covered with a semifluid slurry that soon hardens much like concrete.

    Strategic Management in Developing Countries Case Studies James E. Austin 2000

  • Doctors found and removed from his brain a semifluid mass the size of a golf ball and the consistency of motor oil.

    Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Berendt, John 1994

  • Doctors found and removed from his brain a semifluid mass the size of a golf ball and the consistency of motor oil.

    Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Berendt, John 1994

  • However, the liquid glaze is very viscous (meaning sticky and semifluid) and the molecules cannot easily move around to form a regular crystalline pattern.

    5. Simple glaze theory 1993

  • Interior consists of ... protoplasm, varying from a firmer gelatinous layer to a semifluid central mass.

    The Immunity Syndrome 1966

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