Alternative forms

• asbestus (dated)

Etymology

From Old FrenchCategory:English terms derived from Old French#ASBESTOS abestos, from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#ASBESTOS asbestos, itself from Ancient GreekCategory:English terms derived from Ancient Greek#ASBESTOS ἄσβεστος (ásbestos, “unquenchable, inextinguishable”), from ᾰ̓- (ă-, “not”) + σβέννῡμῐ (sbénnūmĭ, “to quench, quell”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /æsˈbɛs.tɒs/, /æsˈbɛs.təs/, /æzˈbɛs.təs/Category:English 3-syllable words#ASBESTOSCategory:English 3-syllable words#ASBESTOSCategory:English 3-syllable words#ASBESTOSCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#ASBESTOS

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

    Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#ASBESTOS
• (General American) IPA^(key): /æzˈbɛs.təs/Category:English 3-syllable words#ASBESTOSCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#ASBESTOS

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

    Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#ASBESTOS

Noun

asbestos (countable and uncountable, plural asbestoses or (rare) asbesti)Category:English lemmas#ASBESTOSCategory:English nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:English uncountable nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:English countable nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:English countable nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:English nouns with irregular plurals#ASBESTOSCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with entries#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with 3 entries#ASBESTOS

1. (mineralogyCategory:en:Minerals#ASBESTOS) Any of several fibrous mineral forms of magnesium silicate, used for fireproofing, electrical insulation, building materials, brake linings, chemical filters, suits, fireman's gloves, etc.

   All types of asbestos are potentially carcinogenic when inhaled.Category:English terms with usage examples#ASBESTOS

   Asbestos insulation was once ubiquitous.Category:English terms with usage examples#ASBESTOS

   • 1913 February, “Asbestos Mines in China”, in Mines and Minerals‎, volume XXXIII, number 7, Scranton, PA, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 398, column 3:

     Consul Baker, of Antung, China, states that valuable deposits of asbestos have been found in the vicinity of Kuantien, a small town lying about 45 miles northeast of Antung. […] There are three mines now in operation, each employing about 30 workers. These workers, however, are mostly farmers who devote only their spare time to mining and use simply hammers and chisels and gather only the asbestos which lies near the surface.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1946 November and December, “New L.M.S.R. Royal Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 371:

     Insulation against sound and changes in external temperature is given by a thickness of asbestos on the inside of the panels.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

2. (mineralogyCategory:en:Minerals#ASBESTOS) Any of asbestos-like forms of several minerals, asbestiforms
3. (colloquialCategory:English colloquialisms#ASBESTOS, attributive) The supposed material composing part of the body that is impervious to heat, or by extension other unpleasant sensations; especially hot or spicy food.
   • 2013 December 17, Tom Holt, When It's A Jar: YouSpace Book 2, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     She sipped the coffee; she always did have asbestos lips.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2014 May 29, Bernard Veale, Read My Lips, Andrews UK Limited, →ISBN:

     They were exceptionally good and were accompanied by a chili sauce that had to be eaten with great caution unless you had an asbestos tongue but was nonetheless delicious.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2020 October 13, Valérie Falzo, Extraordinary Souls I Have Known, Covenant Books, Inc., →ISBN:

     "Yikes!" I yelped. "This water is scalding!" Lena explained to me that she had asbestos hands. Since it was obvious that I did not have asbestos hands, I offered to dry rather than wash.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2022 July 21, Angela Hui, Takeaway: Stories from a childhood behind the counter, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     Dad plucks the steamed Chinese charcuterie out with his asbestos fingers, places it on the wooden circular chopping board and begins slicing it into bite-size pieces before returning it to the pot.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

Verb

asbestos (third-person singular simple present asbestoses, present participle asbestosing, simple past and past participle asbestosed)Category:English lemmas#ASBESTOSCategory:English verbs#ASBESTOSCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with entries#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with 3 entries#ASBESTOS

1. To coat or line with asbestos.
   • 1919, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 192, page 93, column 4:

     “Be sure you have plenty of kindling before you begin. They are rather non-inflammable and well asbestosed, so to speak.”

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1924, International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers’ Union Journal, volume 19, page 22, column 1:

     The latter department will be asbestosed without according to the idea of Professor Swain, whose deductions are that you should wear an overcoat in summer for the reason that what will keep out the cold will keep out the heat.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1960, Records & Briefs, New York, page 538:

     Q. And you considered asbestosing the interior as part of your job, is that correct? A. That’s right.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1961, Midwest, page 11:

     Though respectable ladies thought him a rake,
     He red-leaded Mrs. Brown’s gutter and spout
     And asbestosed the furnace for Mrs. Stout,
     And oh, the six weeks he spent refluing
     The winter home of Mrs. Hewing!

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1966, Journal of the Indian Chemical Society, page 658:

     Compound (I) (1.5 g.) and benzaldehyde (1.1 g.) were refluxed in glacial acetic acid (30-35 ml.) in presence of fused sodium acetate (2.6 g.) on an asbestosed wire gauge for 3 hr.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1969, Peter Such, Fallout, House of Anansi Press, page 62:

     The other day one of the men doing the asbestosing on the acid retorts fell in a sulphuric sedimentation tank.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1973, International Journal of Orthodontics, volume 11, page 56, column 2:

     Alginate impressions of the “asbestosed” casts are then made and poured in plaster of paris.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1986, John Booth, Wonders of Magic: A Veteran Magician’s Book of Original Tricks, Concepts, Pictures, Memoirs, and Conjuring History, Ridgeway Press, →ISBN, page 116:

     He actually was inside the asbestosed box buried under a roaring fire.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1995, The Railway Magazine, volume 141, page 32, column 2:

     CLASS Nos. 26035 and 26038 have been de-asbestosed by MC Metals, of Glasgow, ready for their move to the South Yorkshire Railway at Meadowhall.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1996, Kisan World, volume 23, page 55, column 1:

     Since low temperature is prevailing in hilly regions, tiled or asbestosed houses can be used to raise the room temperature.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2008, John Peterson, Andrea Birdsall, “4. The European Commission: enlargement as reinvention?”, in Edward Best, Thomas Christiansen, Pierpaolo Settembri, editors, The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union: Continuity and Change, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 61:

     Under Barroso, Commissioners were re-housed together in the new, refurbished (de-asbestosed) Berlaymont building in central Brussels.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2010, Nicholas Hagger, “Book One: September 11th: America under Attack”, “Invocations to Homer, Milton, Heath-Stubbs, Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt”, in Armageddon: The Triumph of Universal Order: An Epic Poem on The War on Terror and of Holy-War Crusaders, O Books, →ISBN, page 45:

     Now Bush wondered / If the collapse of the three buildings could / Somehow be linked to an insurance scam / To win a fortune from asbestosed steel.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

2. To expose to asbestos; to cause to suffer asbestosis.
   • 1990, The Nairobi Law Monthly, page 2, column 3:

     Lungs asbestosed / unable to breath^[sic] / and so incapable / of producing for profit / sent away without delay / so a fresh lunged / could occupy / the vacant place.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

3. (figurative) To insulate or buffer.
   • 1922, The Insurance Press, volume 54, page 6, column 3:

     Is Malcolm J. Miller’s South Carolina Sinking Fund partly immune, partly asbestosed, or what?

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1992, Chapman, →ISBN, page 84:

     Whatever air’s asbestosing the prayers / Of this sparse April parlour must splutter / To dust until it dismantles itself.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 1995, Tejdeep, Caught in a Stampede, Sterling Publishers, →ISBN, page 110:

     Not enough if you / garlanded me before twenty, / asbestosed me several times / around the conjugal fire.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

   • 2017, Karl Meade, Odd Jobs: Misadventures of the Copy-Cat Cat Burglars, FriesenPress, →ISBN:

     Like the house, I’d had my shiny youth of new love, my stuccoed divorce, my asbestosed fallout of pipe pain and dry-rot, my ill-conceived disco years, and my disastrous mid-life reno.

     Category:English terms with quotations#ASBESTOS

Noun

asbestos m plCategory:Spanish non-lemma forms#ASBESTOSCategory:Spanish noun forms#ASBESTOSCategory:Spanish entries with incorrect language header#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with entries#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with 3 entries#ASBESTOS

1. plural of asbesto

Noun

asbestos cCategory:Swedish lemmas#ASBESTOSCategory:Swedish nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:Swedish entries with incorrect language header#ASBESTOSCategory:Swedish common-gender nouns#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with entries#ASBESTOSCategory:Pages with 3 entries#ASBESTOS

1. asbestosis

References

• “asbestos”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “asbestos”, in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)