Detergent

How to spell detergent

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce detergent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does detergent mean?

1. nounA chemical substance, usually a powder or liquid, used for cleaning clothes, dishes, or surfaces.
2. adjectiveHaving the property of cleansing or wiping a surface clean.

Detergent in a sentence

• noun

  She poured a capful of detergent into the washing machine.

• adjective

  The formula has a strong detergent action that lifts grease from pans.

• noun

  The dishwasher will not run without a tablet of detergent.

• adjective

  Engineers tested the detergent properties of the new solvent.

Where does detergent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb detergere, meaning 'to wipe off' or 'to clean away', which was built from the prefix de-, meaning 'off' or 'away', and the verb tergere, meaning 'to wipe or rub clean'. In Latin a detergens was the present participle, describing something that does the wiping away, and that participle form is exactly why the modern English word ends in -ent rather than -ant. English adopted the word in the seventeenth century, at first as a medical and scientific adjective for substances that cleanse a wound or surface. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it had settled into its now-dominant noun sense for a cleaning agent, and the rise of synthetic soap powders made it a household word. The same tergere root surfaces in the rarer English word 'terse', which originally meant polished or wiped clean before it came to mean neatly concise.

How the word is built

• de- (off, away)
• terg- (from Latin tergere: to wipe, rub clean)
• -ent (agent suffix: a thing that does)