dissolving

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act or process by which a substance spreads evenly through a liquid and disappears into it.

   Chemists measured the rate of dissolving for each compound at room temperature.

   Stirring constantly speeds the dissolving of salt in cold water.

   Similardissolution, solvation

   Oppositeprecipitation, crystallization

   Note

   A true noun, not just a verb standing in a noun's place: it can be counted and made plural, as in "particular immersions or dissolvings" in Debating Dispositions (2009), where dissolving is the one way solubility shows itself. Tell it from the verbal gerund by its grammar. The noun takes the, of and a plural (the dissolving of salt), while the gerund takes a direct object (dissolving salt).

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of dissolve.

   The tablet is dissolving slowly at the bottom of the glass.

   Dissolving salt in water lowers its freezing point.

   Note

   The same -ing form does two jobs: after a form of be it marks a change under way (the tablet is dissolving), and in a noun slot it names the action itself. Because dissolve works both with and without an object, so does the participle: sugar dissolving in tea, or a chairman dissolving a committee. In that second pattern it means ending a body by disbanding it, not melting anything.

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