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Les Misérables vocabulary

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alum: tags: [Rx]

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Definition:

1.An astringent salt, usually occurring in the form of pale crystals, much used in the dyeing and tanning trade and in certain medicines, and now understood to be a double sulphate of potassium and aluminium (K2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O). [from 14th c.]

2. (chemistry) Any similar double sulphate in which either or both of the potassium and aluminium is wholly or partly replaced by other univalent or tervalent cations. [from 17th c.]

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Uses:

the inhabitants, in general, make use of well-water, so impregnated with nitre, or alum, or some other villainous mineral, that it is equally ungrateful to the taste, and mischievous to the constitution.

Tobias Smollett. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)

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We were not allowed profanity or even obvious sarcasm, but Bailey looped his language around his tongue and issued it out to Mother in alum drops.

Maya Angelou. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

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