acid-fast

1. 1.

   not easily decolorized by acid solutions; pertains to micro-organisms (especially the tubercle bacillus that causes tuberculosis)

   Similarimpervious

Questions about acid-fast

What does acid-fast mean?

acid-fast means "not easily decolorized by acid solutions; pertains to micro-organisms (especially the tubercle bacillus that causes tuberculosis)".

How many syllables are in acid-fast?

acid-fast has 3 syllables and divides as a-cid--fast under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is acid-fast a common word?

acid-fast 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.