borax

See also: Borax and bórax

Contents

English

Borax

Etymology

From Middle English boras, from Anglo-Norman boreis, from Medieval Latin baurach (“borax”), from Arabic بَوْرَق‎ (bawraq), from Middle Persian *būrag, which yielded Persian بوره‎ (bure).

Noun

borax (uncountable)

1. A white or gray/grey crystalline salt, with a slight alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors/colours on porcelain, and as a soap, etc.
2. (chemistry) The sodium salt of boric acid, Na₂B₄O₇, either anhydrous or with 5 or 10 molecules of water of crystallisation; sodium tetraborate.

Synonyms

• E285 when used as a preservative

Derived terms

Derived terms

• boracic
• borax bead test

• borise, borize
• boron

Translations

crystalline salt

• Acehnese: peuja
• Albanian: boraks (sq) m
• Arabic: بَوْرَق‎ m (bawraq)
• Armenian: բորակ (hy) (borak)
• Catalan: bòrax m
• Esperanto: borakso
• Estonian: booraks
• Finnish: booraksi (fi)
• French: borax (fr) m
• German: Borax n
• Hungarian: bórax (hu)
• Ido: sodoborato (io)

• Indonesian: boraks (id), bleng, pijer, cetitet
• Irish: bórás m
• Italian: borace m
• Javanese: bleng, cetitèt
• Kyrgyz: бура (ky) f (bura)
• Persian: بوره‎ (fa) (bure)
• Portuguese: bórax m
• Russian: бура́ (ru) f (burá)
• Spanish: bórax (es) m, borraj (es) m
• Sundanese: pijer
• Tagalog: pinse
• Turkish: boraks (tr)

(chemistry) Na2B4O7

• Finnish: booraksi (fi)
• French: borax (fr) m

• Irish: bórás m

Adjective

borax (not comparable)

1. Cheap or tawdry, referring to furniture or other works of industrial design.

Further reading

• “Borax” in David Barthelmy, Webmineral Mineralogy Database^[1], 1997–.
• “borax”, in Mindat.org‎^[2], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, accessed 29 August 2016.
• borax at the Free Dictionary