ALKALI • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Alkali

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/ˈælkəlˌaɪ/ Listen

noun

Alkali n. (pl. alkalis or alkalies)

Soda ash; caustic soda, caustic potash, etc.

(Chem.) One of a class of caustic bases, such as soda, potash, ammonia, and lithia, whose distinguishing peculiarities are solubility in alcohol and water, uniting with oils and fats to form soap, neutralizing and forming salts with acids, turning to brown several vegetable yellows, and changing reddened litmus to blue.

Soluble mineral matter, other than common salt, contained in soils of natural waters. (Western U. S.)

Fixed alkalies, potash and soda.

Vegetable alkalies. Same as Alkaloids.

Volatile alkali, ammonia, so called in distinction from the fixed alkalies.

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Etymology of 'Alkali'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Alkali" Quotes from Famous Books

... besides Mr. Fanshawe who had walked out of Mr. Harte's demesne to Jimville and wore names that smacked of the soil,—"Alkali Bill," "Pike" Wilson, "Three Finger," and "Mono Jim;" fierce, shy, profane, sun-dried derelicts of the windy hills, who each owned, or had owned, a mine and was wishful to own one again. They laid up on the worn benches of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck like beached vessels, and their ...

— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... and the maid changed cars twice after leaving St. Louis and then staged it to Kiowa City, where, while waiting for "Pop" Henderson's coach to Fort Crockett, they dined with him on bacon, fried bread, and alkali water ...

— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... open range, slept under the blinking stars, ridden forty miles a day in the face of dust and wind. She had taken two wonderful trips down into the desert—one trip to Chiricahua, and from there across the waste of sand and rock and alkali and cactus to the Mexican borderline; and the other through the Aravaipa Valley, with its deep, ...

— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... nature, as distinct from the connoisseur of dainty or spectacular "scenery," nature has always and everywhere some charm or satisfaction. He will find it no less—some say more—in winter than in summer, and I have little doubt that the great Alkali Desert is not entirely without its enthusiasts. The nature among which we spent our childhood is apt to have a lasting hold on us, in defiance of showier competition, and I suppose there is no land with soul so dead that it does not boast ...

— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... on the east and the high Sierra on the west. It is from ten to fifteen miles wide, that valley, with the Owens river running down the eastern side most of the way until it empties into Owens lake just above Keeler. The lake is salty, bitter, filled with alkali, boras and soda, and for nearly forty miles above its mouth the river itself is pretty brackish and alkaline. Away up the valley the river water is sweet but as it approaches the lake it gathers alkali and borax from the formation through which it flows. This renders it unfit ...

— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

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