borax

See also: Borax and bórax

English

Borax

Etymology

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

Noun

borax (usually uncountable, plural boraxes or boraces)

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. (inorganic chemistry) The sodium salt of boric acid, Na₂B₄O₇, either anhydrous or with 5 or 10 molecules of water of crystallization; sodium tetraborate.
3. (sometimes attributive) Cheap or tawdry furniture or other works of industrial design.
   • 1977, Harlan Ellison, Jeffty is Five:

     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.

Synonyms

• E285 when used as a preservative

Derived terms

Derived terms

• boracic
• borax bead test
• borise, borize
• boron
• poke borax

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
• Hindi: सुहागा (hi) (suhāgā)
• Hungarian: bórax (hu)
• Ido: sodoborato (io)
• Indonesian: boraks (id), bleng, pijer, cetitet
• Irish: bórás m
• Italian: borace m
• Japanese: ホウ砂 (ja) (hōsha), 硼砂 (ja) (hōsha)
• Javanese: bleng, cetitèt
• Kyrgyz: бура (ky) f (bura)
• Latin: santerna f
• Persian: بوره (fa) (bure)
• Polish: boraks (pl) m
• Portuguese: bórax m
• Romanian: borax (ro) n, borat de sodiu
• Russian: бура́ (ru) f (burá)
• Spanish: bórax (es) m, borraj (es) m
• Sundanese: pijer
• Tagalog: pinse
• Turkish: boraks (tr)
• Vietnamese: hàn the (vi)

(chemistry) Na2B4O7

• Finnish: booraksi (fi)
• French: borax (fr) m
• Irish: bórás m
• Polish: boraks (pl) m

Verb

borax (third-person singular simple present boraxes, present participle boraxing, simple past and past participle boraxed)

1. (transitive) To treat with borax.

Further reading

• David Barthelmy (1997–2024) “Borax”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “borax”, in Mindat.org‎^[1], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2024.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “borax n.¹”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
• borax at the Free Dictionary

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French borax.

Noun

borax n (uncountable)

1. borax

Declension

declension of borax (singular only)

	singular
n gender	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) borax	boraxul
genitive/dative	(unui) borax	boraxului
vocative	boraxule