Liquid Definition
liquid
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English
Wikipedia has an article on: Liquid A liquid—water—flowing out of a bottleEtymology
From Middle English liquide, from Old French liquide, from Latin liquidus (“fluid, liquid, moist”), from liquere (“to be liquid, be fluid”).
Pronunciation
Noun
liquid (countable and uncountable; plural liquids)
- (physics) 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.
- A liquid can freeze to become a solid or evaporate into a gas.
- (phonetics) An l or r sound.
Usage notes
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.
Coordinate terms
Related terms
See also
Adjective
liquid (comparative more liquid, superlative most liquid)
- 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
- (finance, of an asset) Easily sold or disposed of without losing value.
- (finance, of a market) Having sufficient trading activity to make buying or selling easy.
Antonyms
Related terms
Translations
fluid; not solid and not gaseous
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External links
- liquid in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- liquid in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
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Liquid is a form of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. A liquid is made up of tiny vibrating particles of matter, such as atoms and molecules, held together by forces called chemical bonds. Water is, by far, the most common liquid on Earth. Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter (the others being gas and solid). Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly constant density. A distinctive property of the liquid state is surface tension, leading to wetting phenomena.
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