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Apr 8, 2022
This week’s theme
Words from chemistry

This week’s words
litmus test
flashpoint
chain reaction
borax
boiling point

boiling point
Boiling Point, 2021
Image: IMDb

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Eponyms
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

boiling point

PRONUNCIATION:
(BOI-ling point)

MEANING:
noun:
1. The point at which a situation turns into a crisis.
2. The point at which one loses one’s temper.
3. The temperature at which a liquid boils.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French boillir, from Latin bullire (to bubble), from bulla (bubble). Earliest documented use: 1773.

USAGE:
“Before the unrest, NGOs working in townships warned of simmering tensions taken to boiling point by Covid-19.”
The Shaming of South Africa: The Economist (London, UK); Jul 24, 2021.

See more usage examples of boiling point in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life. -Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, essayist, and poet (b. 8 Apr 1955)

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