congealment
- noun
- /kənˈdʒilmənt/
- The chef noticed a rapid congealment of the sauce as it cooled, thickening it for the dish.
Examples
-
After being left in the fridge overnight, the jelly undergoes congealment and becomes firm.
-
The severe cold caused the congealment of the pond's surface, creating a layer of ice.
-
He wants to show how his own acts of writing enable him to transform the congealments of historical events into the creative disturbances of his prose style, and he is anxious to prove that the increased complexity accrued by this strictly literary effort allows him at once to be in history, but not subject to its conditions.
Academic text (1992)
Synonyms
A change when a liquid turns into a solid because it gets very cold
The change when a liquid or soft thing becomes hard, usually by cooling
Becoming solid when something freezes or thickens
A process of becoming hard when a liquid cools or a wet material dries
A liquid that becomes a soft solid like jelly
Antonyms
How Solid
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word congealment comes from the parts con- and gel-; con- means 'together' and gel- means 'freeze' or 'set', the same root you see in the English word gel. So congealment is the process of things 'freezing or setting together', which is why it means becoming thick or solid.