nitrate

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a salt or ester of nitric acid, containing the nitrate ion or nitrate group

   Farmers monitor nitrate levels so that fertilizer does not contaminate groundwater.

2. 2
   verb

   to treat a substance with nitric acid or a nitrate so that a nitrate compound is formed

   The chemist used a controlled reaction to nitrate the aromatic compound.

Borrowed from French nitrate, formed from nitre with the chemical suffix -ate. Nitre came through Latin nitrum and Greek nitron from an older Egyptian source. The noun names nitric-acid salts and esters; the verb describes making them.

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