hydroxy acid

1. 1.

   any acid that has hydroxyl groups in addition to the hydroxyl group in the acid itself

   Broaderacid

   Narrowerhydroxybenzoic acidjuniperic acidsalicylic acidtartaric acid

Questions about hydroxy acid

What does hydroxy acid mean?

hydroxy acid means "any acid that has hydroxyl groups in addition to the hydroxyl group in the acid itself".

Is hydroxy acid a common word?

hydroxy 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.