liquid

From Middle English liquide, from Old French liquide, from Latin liquidus (“fluid, liquid, moist”), from liquere (“to be liquid, be fluid”). As a term for a consonant, it comes from Latin liquida (cōnsōnāns), a calque of Ancient Greek ὑγρὸν (σύμφωνον) (hugròn (súmphōnon), “liquid consonant”).

• enPR: lĭk'wĭd, IPA^(key): /ˈlɪkwɪd/

• Audio (US)

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• Hyphenation: liq‧uid

liquid (countable and uncountable, plural liquids)

1. A substance that is flowing, and keeping no shape, such as water; a substance of which the molecules, while not tending to separate from one another like those of a gas, readily change their relative position, and which therefore retains no definite shape, except that determined by the containing receptacle; an inelastic fluid.

   Coordinate terms: solid, gas

   Hyponyms: ideal liquid, non-ideal liquid

   • 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.

   A liquid can freeze to become a solid or evaporate into a gas.

2. (phonetics) A class of consonant sounds that includes l and r.

   Hypernyms: approximant, consonant

   Coordinate term: glide

   • 1999, Ingo Plag, Morphological Productivity (page 86)

     […] -able does not attach to verbs ending in a postconsonantal liquid […]

The differentiation of a liquid as an incompressible fluid is not strictly correct, experiment having shown that liquids are compressible to a very limited extent. See fluid.

• fluid

liquid (comparative more liquid, superlative most liquid)

1. Flowing freely like water; fluid; not solid and not gaseous; composed of particles that move freely among each other on the slightest pressure.

   liquid nitrogen

2. (finance, of an asset) Easily sold or disposed of without losing value.
3. (finance, of a market) Having sufficient trading activity to make buying or selling easy.
4. Flowing or sounding smoothly or without abrupt transitions or harsh tones.

   a liquid melody

5. (phonology) Pronounced without any jar or harshness; smooth.

   L and R are liquid letters.

6. Fluid and transparent.

   the liquid air

• (flowing freely): solid; gaseous
• (easily sold): illiquid
• (having sufficient activity): illiquid

• liquid in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• liquid in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• liquid on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Latin liquidus.

liquid m (feminine singular liquida, masculine plural liquids, feminine plural liquidas)

1. liquid
   • 2019 January 18, “La planeta dels tres pòls magnetics”, in Jornalet‎:

     Son dins una partida de la planeta liquida, facha de fèrre e niquèl.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

• liquidar

liquid m (plural liquids)

1. liquid

• Joan de Cantalausa (2006) Diccionari general occitan a partir dels parlars lengadocians, 2 edition, →ISBN, page 607.