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Glite Dictionary
🥫 A food preservative ⚗️ A chemical agent
metabisulphite

metabisulphite

9.9
A salt used in labs and factories to remove chlorine and clean or bleach things
  • noun
  • /ˌmɛtəˈbaɪsəlfaɪt/
  • UK
: metabisulfito
  • The paper industry often uses metabisulphite as a bleaching agent.

Examples

  • The lab technician added metabisulphite to the solution to reduce the risk of contamination.

  • The fixing may be done in AMFIX or in a fixer with crystal hypo and pot metabisulphite.

    Academic text (1995)

  • To preserve the fruit, the chef treated it with metabisulphite before canning.

Surface Forms

metabisulphite singular
metabisulphites plural

Morphology

metabisulphite = bisulphite (opaque) = meta + bi + sulphite

The form is built by adding the chemical prefix 'meta-' to 'bisulphite', but the resulting term is highly specialized and not compositionally obvious to typical learners.

Etymology

The word metabisulphite breaks into meta- and bisulphite, with bis- meaning 'two' and sulphite from 'sulphur', a common chemical. Because it is a sulphur-based salt with two linked parts, metabisulphite is used as a bleaching agent, disinfectant, and reducing agent in industry and lab work.