acetic acid

1. 1.

   a colorless pungent liquid widely used in manufacturing plastics and pharmaceuticals

   Synonymsethanoic acid

   Broadercarboxylic acid

   Narroweracetumtrichloroacetic acidvinegar

Questions about acetic acid

What does acetic acid mean?

acetic acid means "a colorless pungent liquid widely used in manufacturing plastics and pharmaceuticals".

What is another word for acetic acid?

Close synonyms include ethanoic acid. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is acetic acid a common word?

acetic acid is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.