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alum
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
alum
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He learned, among other things, what alum served for, besides dyeing.
▪ He sprayed a picric acid and alum solution into the noses of forty-six hundred Alabamians, to no good end.
▪ Here he also made alum and sulphuric acid by the lead chamber process.
▪ Much of the long-distance trade was in commodities connected with the cloth industry, notably dyestuffs such as woad and alum.
▪ Spence's product was an ammonium alum which gradually displaced the potash alum which had been made principally at Whitby.
▪ The treatment so far had been innocuous: quinine pills and injections of alum water.
▪ Whit- or white-leather was leather that had been dressed with alum, and it was often horse-leather.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Alum

Alum \Al"um\, n. [OE. alum, alom, OF. alum, F. alun, fr. L. alumen alum.] (Chem.) A double sulphate formed of aluminium and some other element (esp. an alkali metal) or of aluminium. It has twenty-four molecules of water of crystallization.

Note: Common alum is the double sulphate of aluminium and potassium. It is white, transparent, very astringent, and crystallizes easily in octahedrons. The term is extended so as to include other double sulphates similar to alum in formula.

Alum

Alum \Al"um\, v. t. To steep in, or otherwise impregnate with, a solution of alum; to treat with alum.
--Ure. [1913 Webster] ||

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
alum

late 14c., "whitish mineral salt used as an astringent, dye, etc.," from Old French alum, from Latin alumen "alum," literally "bitter salt," cognate with Greek aludoimos "bitter" and perhaps with English ale.

Wiktionary
alum

Etymology 1 n. 1 An astringent salt, usually occurring in the form of pale crystals, much used in the dyeing and tanning trade and in certain medicines, and now understood to be a double sulphate of potassium and aluminium (K2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O). (from 14th c.) 2 (context chemistry English) Any similar double sulphate in which either or both of the potassium and aluminium is wholly or partly replaced by other univalent or tervalent cations. (from 17th c.) vb. (context transitive English) To steep in, or otherwise impregnate with, a solution of alum; to treat with alum. Etymology 2

n. (context US English) A graduate of a university or other institution.

WordNet
alum
  1. n. a white crystalline double sulfate of aluminum: the ammonium double sulfate of aluminum [syn: ammonia alum, ammonium alum]

  2. a white crystalline double sulfate of aluminum: the potassium double sulfate of aluminum [syn: potassium alum, potash alum]

  3. a person who has received a degree from a school (high school or college or university) [syn: alumnus, alumna, graduate, grad]

  4. a double sulphate of aluminum and potassium that is used as an astringent (among other things)

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Alum

Alum is both a specific chemical compound and a class of chemical compounds. The specific compound is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate ( potassium alum) with the formula K Al ·12. More widely, alums are double sulfate salts, with the general formula , where A is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium and M is a trivalent metal ion such as aluminum or chromium(III). When the trivalent ion is aluminium, the alum is named after the monovalent ion.

Alum (disambiguation)

Alum is a species and class of chemical compound.

  • Potassium alum, the prototypical member of the class, often referred to simply as alum.

Alum may also refer to:

  • Alum, Texas, a community in the United States
  • Alumnus, a graduate of a particular institution
  • Alum Pot, a pothole in Simon Fell, North Yorkshire, England
  • Ålum Runestones, four Viking age runestones located in Ålum, Denmark
Alum (surname)

Alum is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Robert Alum (died 1417), an English medieval bishop and university chancellor

Usage examples of "alum".

This method can be carried out in, for instance, dyeing a cochineal scarlet with tin crystals, a yellow from fustic and alum, a black from logwood and copperas and bluestone, a red from madder and bichrome, and the dyeing of the Alizarine colours by the use of chrome fluoride, etc.

One had the same brushed, crosshatched alum carapace he had seen earlier, something new in navvy design.

La grande, it was called, and as each successive kettle was boiled down it was purified with alum and ash and emptied into the next: le flambeau, la lessive, le sirop, la batterie, every one smaller than the last, a seething inferno of heat and stink and boiling juice.

Ennet House alum and senior counselor Calvin Thrust came roaring in and pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards like a slow-tease stripper, slumping and draping his arms over the back of the chair, gesturing with an unlit rodney as he spoke.

Uses of Aluminium Sulphate and Alums -- Application to Wool and Silk -- Preparing and using Aluminium Acetates -- Employment of Aluminium Sulphate in Carbonising Wool -- The Manufacture of Lake Pigments -- Manufacture of Prussian Blue -- Hide and Leather Industry -- Paper Making -- Hardening Plaster -- Lime Washes -- Preparation of Non-inflammable Wood, etc.

Analysis and Valuation of the more important Chemicals used in Paper Making, including Lime, Caustic Soda, Sodium Carbonate, Mineral Acids, Bleach Antichlor, Alum, Rosin and Rosin Size, Glue Gelatin and Casein, Starch, China Clay, Blanc Fixe, Satin White and other Loading Materials, Mineral Colours and Aniline Dyes.

Fortunately, Dum-Dum said he had just the thing for them, a special concoction of his own devising, consisting of an astringent compounded of alum, sharkskin oil, hydrocortisone and a butylated cream to hold the ingredients into a semi-solid mass, guaranteed to either scare hemorrhoids back where they came from or simply dry the whole mess up into something that could be snipped off with a pair of surgical scissors.

Not as easy to bleach, but the alum they used in the wood-pulp process undergoes hydrolysis and produces sulphuric acid.

After effecting the erasure the spot is often rubbed over with a powdered alum or gum sandarac, or coated with gelatin or size.

It yields precipitates with alum, stannous chloride, chrome alum, silver nitrate, iron salts, copper sulphate.

No doubt the Kappa alums who had hired her, impressed with her accent and bearing, had this in mind.

They both had been alums of York, and they both had known their killer.

What kind of person in a university would target alums who became millionaires?

And they called alums from universities, where they knew how old you were, where you lived, and what you looked like.

Manufacture of Aluminium Sulphate and the Alums -- Manufacture of Sulphates of Iron.