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/ˈæl.əm/ · noun
An astringent salt, usually occurring in the form of pale crystals, much used in the dyeing and tanning trade and in certain medicines, and now understood to be a double sulphate of potassium and aluminium (K₂SO₄·Al₂(SO₄)₃·24H₂O)..
Venice also needed alum for trade, since it was the point of departure for overland transportation of alum to southern Germany and its cloth-manufacturing Free Cities.
A natural astringent and antiseptic, potassium alum was coveted for its medicinal and cosmetic properties.
With weld and cochineal, which are colouring matters the most sensible to the action of sulphate of iron, the purified alums gave us colours more brilliant, fresh, and in a slight degree lighter; while those with our common alums were all duller, and evidently of a deeper hue.
For similar reasons, aluminium sulphate and alums are used in dyeing cloth.[…]Normally alums are soluble in water and insoluble in alcohols.
In structure, the alums consist of simple ions, being not complexes, but double salts. Potash alum or potassium alum is the common alum, with the formula KAl(SO₄)₂·12H₂O) which, for convenience, may be written K₂SO₄·Al₂(SO₄)₃·24H₂O
The silk should be boiled at the rate of 20 parts of soap per cent. , and then alumed. The aluming need not be so strong as for the fine crimson
After drying, the cloth was alumed and finally dyed.
1961 Spring, Anchora of Delta Gamma, Volume LXXVII, No. 3, page 59, Evanston-North Shore alums are happy to open their homes to Sigma actives for special social events.
Use alum when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Alum means An astringent salt, usually occurring in the form of pale crystals, much used in the dyeing and tanning trade and in certain medicines, and now understood to be a double sulphate of potassium and aluminium (K₂SO₄·Al₂(SO₄)₃·24H₂O)..
Common synonyms include potash alum, alumni, alumnx, alumna.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Venice also needed alum for trade, since it was the point of departure for overland transportation of alum to southern Germany and its cloth-manufacturing Free Cities.
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