Phthalate
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any salt or ester of a phthalic acid.
"Researchers investigating levels of phthalates in the human body, which have been linked to asthma, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and fertility issues in the past few years, were found to be nearly 35% higher in participants who had eaten out the previous day compared with those who stayed at home."
Example
More examples"Researchers investigating levels of phthalates in the human body, which have been linked to asthma, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and fertility issues in the past few years, were found to be nearly 35% higher in participants who had eaten out the previous day compared with those who stayed at home."
Etymology
From phthal(ic) + -ate (“salt or ester”), short for obsolete naphthalic acid, from naphthalene.
Related phrases
More for "phthalate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.