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cream of tartar
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cream of tartar

Tartar \Tar"tar\, n. [F. tartre (cf. Pr. tartari, Sp., Pg., & It. tartaro, LL. tartarum, LGr. ?); perhaps of Arabic origin.]

  1. (Chem.) A reddish crust or sediment in wine casks, consisting essentially of crude cream of tartar, and used in marking pure cream of tartar, tartaric acid, potassium carbonate, black flux, etc., and, in dyeing, as a mordant for woolen goods; -- called also argol, wine stone, etc.

  2. A correction which often incrusts the teeth, consisting of salivary mucus, animal matter, and phosphate of lime.

    Cream of tartar. (Chem.) See under Cream.

    Tartar emetic (Med. Chem.), a double tartrate of potassium and basic antimony. It is a poisonous white crystalline substance having a sweetish metallic taste, and used in medicine as a sudorific and emetic.

Cream of tartar

Cream \Cream\ (kr[=e]m), n. [F. cr[^e]me, perh. fr. LL. crema cream of milk; cf. L. cremor thick juice or broth, perh. akin to cremare to burn.]

  1. The rich, oily, and yellowish part of milk, which, when the milk stands unagitated, rises, and collects on the surface. It is the part of milk from which butter is obtained.

  2. The part of any liquor that rises, and collects on the surface. [R.]

  3. A delicacy of several kinds prepared for the table from cream, etc., or so as to resemble cream.

  4. A cosmetic; a creamlike medicinal preparation.

    In vain she tries her paste and creams, To smooth her skin or hide its seams.
    --Goldsmith.

  5. The best or choicest part of a thing; the quintessence; as, the cream of a jest or story; the cream of a collection of books or pictures. Welcome, O flower and cream of knights errant. --Shelton. Bavarian cream, a preparation of gelatin, cream, sugar, and eggs, whipped; -- to be eaten cold. Cold cream, an ointment made of white wax, almond oil, rose water, and borax, and used as a salve for the hands and lips. Cream cheese, a kind of cheese made from curd from which the cream has not been taken off, or to which cream has been added. Cream gauge, an instrument to test milk, being usually a graduated glass tube in which the milk is placed for the cream to rise. Cream nut, the Brazil nut. Cream of lime.

    1. A scum of calcium carbonate which forms on a solution of milk of lime from the carbon dioxide of the air.

    2. A thick creamy emulsion of lime in water.

      Cream of tartar (Chem.), purified tartar or argol; so called because of the crust of crystals which forms on the surface of the liquor in the process of purification by recrystallization. It is a white crystalline substance, with a gritty acid taste, and is used very largely as an ingredient of baking powders; -- called also potassium bitartrate, acid potassium tartrate, etc.

Wiktionary
cream of tartar

n. (context chemistry English) potassium hydrogen tartrate (also called potassium bitartrate), a byproduct of wine manufacture, used in baking powder and in cooking to stabilize beaten egg whites.

WordNet
cream of tartar

n. a salt used especially in baking powder [syn: tartar, potassium hydrogen tartrate]

Usage examples of "cream of tartar".

Also, a tablespoon in place of cream of tartar in meringue makes it beautifully high.

This man I had given a few doses of flowers of sulphur and cream of tartar and directed that he should take the cold bath every morning.

Club moss and seaweed, which contain alum, were also available to the home dyer, and where old wine barrels were accessible, the cream of tartar could be scraped from the inside of the barrels and added to the dyebath.

She had to make her own baking powder from soda and cream of tartar before mixing a batch of biscuits.

They know about things like cream of tartar, except they probably call it something different.

We had already ascribed it to his diet of roots, and had recommended his living on fish and flesh, and using the cold bath every morning, with a dose of cream of tartar or flowers of sulphur every third day.

He ached in every joint of his body, and his head pounded with the effects of the sun and the glare until he thought his skull would pop likea ripe cream of tartar pod on a baobab tree.

All parts of the plant, but especially the flowering tops, yield a good yellow dye, and from the earliest times have been used by dyers for producing this colour, especially for wool: combined with woad, an excellent green is yielded, the colour being fixed with alum, cream of tartar and sulphate of lime.