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Glite Dictionary
to thoriate

to thoriate

9.9
To coat a metal part with thorium so it gives more electrons when heated
  • verb
  • Specialized
: toracizar
  • To improve the efficiency of the vacuum tube, they decided to thoriate the filament.

Examples

  • The technician will thoriate the cathode to enhance its thermionic emission.

  • He learned that to thoriate the materials properly, precise heating and control are necessary.

  • It is said to take the best qualities of three "rare-earth" tungstens and combine them into a high-performance blend, and it is also claimed to be an ideal replacement for radioactive 2 percent thoriated tungsten.

    Academic text (1998)

Surface Forms

thoriate infinitive
thoriate past
thoriate past participle
thoriating present participle
thoriate third person singular

Morphology

thoriate = thorium (transparent) = thori + ate

Formed by adding the verb-forming suffix '-ate' to the element name 'thorium' (via the combining stem 'thori-'), so knowing 'thorium' makes the meaning clear.

Etymology

Thoriate comes from the element thorium, which was named after the Norse god Thor, and the ending -ate is a common chemical verb meaning 'to treat with', as in carbonate or nitrate. So to thoriate something is to treat or coat it with thorium (often as thorium oxide), which explains why engineers use it to increase emission.