phosphate

Definition

Any salt or ester of phosphoric acid.

Etymology

From French phosphate. By surface analysis, phosphoric acid + -ate (“salt or ester”).

Example Sentences

• "Make sure you don’t use detergents with phosphates or nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants, but that information is rarely available on the labels."
• "Bony fishes were judicious in their use of phosphate as a building material: their teeth, a few parts of the skeleton, and that was it."
• "An egg phosphate is a phosphate to which an egg has been added in the proper manner. While an egg phosphate can be flavored with any syrup that makes a good phosphate, still the standard flavor by long usage has com to be orange […]"