Borax
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 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. uncountable, usually
"“The best way to clean the machine is to put a pound of borax and a gallon of vinegar in the machine and run the longest, hottest cycle you have,” he says."
- 2 an ore of boron consisting of hydrated sodium borate; used as a flux or cleansing agent wordnet
- 3 The sodium salt of boric acid, Na₂B₄O₇, either anhydrous or with 5 or 10 molecules of water of crystallization; sodium tetraborate. uncountable, usually
- 4 Cheap or tawdry furniture or other works of industrial design. attributive, sometimes, uncountable, usually
"Furniture isn't made to last thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-coded borax every seven years."
- 1 To treat with borax. transitive
Example
More examples"Borax is probably the best known compound of boron."
Etymology
From Middle English boras, from Anglo-Norman boreis, from Medieval Latin borax, baurach (“borax”), from Arabic بَوْرَق (bawraq), from Middle Persian bwlk' (bōrag), which yielded Persian بوره (bure).
Related phrases
More for "borax"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.