deliquiate means to melt and become liquid by absorbing water from the air; to deliquesce. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why “deliquiate” is a great word
To become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air. First attested in 1668, from Latin *deliquium* (a flowing down, fainting) and the English verbal suffix -ate. Unlike "liquefy," which suggests a decisive transformation by heat, or the more clinical "deliquesce," its close synonym, to deliquiate implies a passive, almost sorrowful yielding. It is a slow effacement: a forgotten salt pillar weeping into its own puddle on a humid shelf, a sugar cube vanishing into a film of damp, a chalk mark on a blackboard turning into a ghost of its former self. It speaks of a surrender not to fire, but to the persistent, gentle press of the atmosphere, a return to liquidity that feels less like melting and more like forgetting one’s own shape.
Etymology
First attested in 1668; either from deliquium + -ate (verb-forming suffix) or an alteration of deliquate.
verb
- To melt and become liquid by absorbing water from the air; to deliquesce.“Its strong taste, its tendency to deliquiate, and indeed all its properties, lead us to think, that it would act powerfully on the animal œconomy […]”
- To cause to melt.