acetate
noun
Simple meaning
Any salt or ester of acetic acid.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
asuhtaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈæsəteɪt
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
organic chemistry
Any salt or ester of acetic acid.
A transparent sheet used for overlays.
Cellulose acetate.
Ellipsis of acetate disc: a disc of aluminium covered in a wax used to make demonstration copies of a phonograph record.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any salt or ester of acetic acid.
Used this way, acetate is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- acetate rayon , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A disk coated with cellulose acetate.
A fabric made from fibers of cellulose acetate.
An ester of acetic acid.
A corticosteroid hormone (trade name Cortone Acetate) normally produced by the adrenal cortex.
A blue or green powder used as a paint pigment.
A fragrant colorless flammable volatile liquid ester made from ethanol and acetic acid.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Cellulose acetate that is relatively slow to burn.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: any salt or ester of acetic acid
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.