# catalyst

Pronunciation: US/AUS say "KAT-uh-list" /ˈkæt.ə.lɪst/; UK say "KAT-i-list" /ˈkæt.ɪ.lɪst/

## Noun

1. A person, event, or other influence that encourages progress or change.
   - Simple: A person or thing that helps change or progress happen.
   - _The closing of the steel mill served as a catalyst for a wave of local reform._
   - _Two young organizers were the catalysts behind the city's push for safer bike lanes._
2. A substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without itself being used up in the process.
   - Simple: A substance that makes a chemical reaction happen faster without being used up.
   - _The plant uses a nickel catalyst to speed the conversion of vegetable oil into margarine._
   - _Enzymes are the catalysts that let reactions in living cells run quickly at body temperature._
3. An inciting incident: the event in a story that sets the conflict that follows in motion.
   - Simple: In a story, the event that starts the trouble or struggle that comes after it.
   - _The novel's catalyst arrives in chapter two, when the heroine finds a map hidden in her grandmother's attic._
   - _In her first draft, the murder that acts as the catalyst doesn't happen until halfway through the script._
4. A catalytic converter, the part of a vehicle's exhaust system that turns harmful gases into less harmful ones.
   - Simple: A part in the exhaust of a car or truck that makes the gases from its engine less harmful.
   - _Older cars without a catalyst pump far more pollution into the air._
   - _A failing catalyst can turn on the check-engine light and cause the car to fail an emissions test._

## Other meanings

- (noun) An object that facilitates the casting of a spell (such as a magic wand).

## Origin

Formed from catalysis combined with the suffix -ist.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/catalyst (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).