detergent

1. 1.

   having cleansing power

   Synonymsdetersive

   Similarpurifying

Other forms of detergent

plural

detergents·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about detergent

What does detergent mean?

detergent means "a surface-active chemical widely used in industry and laundering". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in detergent?

detergent has 3 syllables: de-ter-gent. The stress falls on "ter". In IPA it is /dɪˈtɝdʒənt/.

What is another word for detergent?

Close synonyms include detersive. 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 detergent a common word?

detergent is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.