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caustic.

Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈkɔːstɪk/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈkɒstɪk/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈkoːstɪk/Australia, British, Southern, Standard/ˈkɔstɪk/Australia, British, Southern, Standard

  1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.

  2. Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.

    usually
Where this word comes from

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from Ancient Greek καυστικός (kaustikós, “burning”), from καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”) + -ικός (-ikós).

noun/ˈkɔːstɪk/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈkɒstɪk/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈkoːstɪk/Australia, British, Southern, Standard/ˈkɔstɪk/Australia, British, Southern, Standard

  1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.

    countable · uncountable

  2. The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.

    countable · uncountable

  3. The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.

    countable · uncountable

  4. Caustic soda.

    informal · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from Ancient Greek καυστικός (kaustikós, “burning”), from καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”) + -ικός (-ikós).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.