superheated

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   heated above a normal boiling, saturation, or critical temperature without undergoing the expected phase change

   A jet of superheated steam hissed from the damaged pipe.

2. 2
   adj

   figuratively: extremely intense, excited, or emotionally charged

   The rumor spread through a superheated political atmosphere.

From super- + heated. In nineteenth-century thermodynamics it became a technical adjective for steam or another substance heated beyond its usual saturation point; the figurative sense extends that excess intensity to situations and emotions.

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