caustic
English
Adjective
(
en adjective)
Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
*
, title=(
The Celebrity), chapter=8
, passage=The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;
Synonyms
* (capable of destroying tissue ): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing
* (severe, sharp ): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spiteful
Quotations
* 1843': "How now!" said Scrooge, '''caustic and cold as ever. — Charles Dickens, ''A Christmas Carol
* 1843': The bargain was not concluded as easily as might have been expected though, for Scadder was '''caustic and ill-humoured, and cast much unnecessary opposition in the way — Charles Dickens, ''Martin Chuzzlewit
* 1853': Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, '''caustic , ironic, and cynical — Charlotte Bronte, ''Villette
* 1857':The Secretary and the Assistant-Secretaries would say little '''caustic things about him to the senior clerks, and seemed somewhat to begrudge him his new honours. — Anthony Trollope, ''The Three Clerks
* 1886': this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut up their emotions with '''caustic words. — Thomas Hardy, ''The Mayor of Casterbridge
* 1930s???': though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a ' caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great — W.H.Auden, 'The Quest'
Derived terms
* caustic curve
* caustic potash
* caustic soda
* caustic surface
Noun
(
en noun)
Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
(optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
(mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
(informal, chemistry) caustic soda
Derived terms
* lunar caustic
