accelerant

accelerant

See also: accélérant

English

WOTD – 12 January 2021

Etymology

From accelerate +‎ -ant (suffix forming agent nouns from verbs, or forming adjectives with senses of being prone or tending to do the actions of verbs).[1]

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əkˈsɛləɹ(ə)nt/, /æk-/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /əkˈsɛlərənt/, /æk-/
• Hyphenation: ac‧cel‧er‧ant

Noun

accelerant (plural accelerants)

1. (chemistry) Any substance that can bond or mix with, or disturb, another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a natural or artificial chemical process.
   1. In the context of fire protection, a substance that accelerates the development of a fire, especially some hydrocarbon-based fuel used to spread a fire caused by arson.
      • 2010 September 25, William Glaberson, “Accelerant Was on Girls’ Beds, Witness Tells a Connecticut Jury”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:

        Accelerant was poured across the beds where the two daughters of a family in Cheshire, Conn., had been tied before a fire during a home invasion in 2007, a fire investigator told jurors on Friday.

   2. A substance used to catalyze the vulcanization of rubber.
2. (figurative) Something that speeds up a process or the uptake of something else.
   • 2017 August 16, Laura Hudson, “Using YouTube as an Accelerant for Video Games”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:

     Hello Neighbor’s experience reflects the rise of video sites like YouTube as an accelerant for the video game business.

   • 2019 January 26, Kitty Empire [pseudonym], “The Streets review – the agony and ecstasy of a great everyman”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 8 April 2019:

     [Mike] Skinner can be credited with pouring lots of accelerant on pop in his time. In his absence, Caribbean-derived UK bass music became the de facto sound of British youth.

Related terms

• accelerate
• accelerated (adjective)
• accelerating (adjective, noun)
• acceleration
• accelerator
• nonaccelerated (adjective)
• nonaccelerating (adjective)
• unaccelerated (adjective)
• unaccelerate (rare)
• unaccelerating (adjective)

 

Translations

substance that can bond or mix with, or disturb, another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a chemical process

Finnish: kiihdyke (fi), kiihdyte, kiihdytin (fi) German: Beschleuniger (de) m Italian: accelerante (it) m Japanese: 促進剤 (そくしんざい, sokushinzai) Russian: ускори́тель (ru) m (uskorítelʹ)

substance that accelerates the development of a fire

Finnish: kiihdytin (fi), polttoaine (fi) German: Brandbeschleuniger (de) m Greenlandic: akoq ikummarissaat, akoq sukkatsisaat

substance used to catalyze the vulcanization of rubber

Finnish: kiihdytin (fi)

something that speeds up a process or the uptake of something else

See also

• catalyst

Adjective

accelerant (comparative more accelerant, superlative most accelerant)

1. Causing acceleration or speeding up; accelerating.

Translations

causing acceleration or speeding up

Italian: accelerante (it) m

References

1. “accelerant, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2011; “accelerant, n. and adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

• accelerant on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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Catalan

Verb

accelerant

1. present participle of accelerar

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Latin

Verb

accelerant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of accelerō