Epsom salts

English

Etymology

Named after Epsom in Surrey, England; the town had a spring which gave forth bitter saline water containing the compound.

Noun

Epsom salts (countable and uncountable, plural Epsom salts)

1. magnesium sulfate, used as a laxative and in the preparation of tofu as a coagulator, and formerly as a medicated soaking solution.
   • 2010, Andrea Levy, The Long Song, Tinder Press (2017), pages 71–72:

     And who but July would know […] that her back needed to be rubbed after she had drank her Epsom salts so as to release, into a belch or fart, the wind that so plagued her.

Translations

common name for magnesium sulfate

• Burmese: ဆားခါး (my) (hca:hka:)
• Finnish: karvassuola, katkerosuola
• Greek: θειικό μαγνήσιο n (theiikó magnísio)
• Gujarati: વિલાયતી મીઠું (vilāyatī mīṭhũ)
• Jingpho: săhka
• Russian: англи́йская соль (ru) f (anglíjskaja solʹ)
• Yiddish: ביטערזאַלץ (biterzalts), ענגלישע זאַלץ (englishe zalts)

Anagrams

• mesoplasts