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Definition
damaging or harmful — such as when describing a strong acid or bad behavioror (more rarely):
something causing damage or harm — such as a strong acid
Much more rarely, corrosive can describe a hurtful sarcasm or personality.
- Titanium is resistant to the corrosive effect.
corrosive = damaging (in this case through chemical reaction)
- corrosive effect of the post-modern philosophy
- The corrosive spray that hit his face seared into his lungs and eyes, blinding him.Gary Paulsen -- Hatchet
- Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid.Hawthorne, Nathaniel -- Mosses From An Old Manse and other stories
- The penetrating power of his mind, acting like a corrosive fluid, had destroyed his ambition...Conrad, Joseph -- Amy Foster
- The calling of a man's self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive.Bacon, Sir Francis -- The Essays
- Viaburi, the house-boy, brought him corrosive sublimate and water, and he took a thorough antiseptic wash.London, Jack -- Adventure
- Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly.Donna Tartt -- The Goldfinch
- My mouth filled with liquid, bile and blood from biting my tongue, salty and corrosive and sweet.Gail Carson Levine -- Ella Enchanted
- Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation.Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables
- She stopped suddenly as doubt struck her with vicious and corrosive force.Stephen King -- Carrie
- It's a corrosive gas, like fluorine, which is used to etch glass.Michael Crichton -- Jurassic Park
- Mami's letters, as regular as the months themselves, were corrosive slaps in the face.Junot Diaz -- Drown
- It is sticking here in the pit of my stomach, eating into me like a corrosive acid.Henrik Ibsen -- An Enemy of the People
- Good old reliable H2SO4, an oily, colorless, corrosive liquid used in dyes, paints, explosives, and many chemical experiments.Rodman Philbrick -- Freak the Mighty
- Disappointment was as dark and corrosive in her as the Black Thing.Madeleine L'Engle -- A Wrinkle in Time
- I imagined she would have already hosed us down with acid if she weren't worried about the long-term effects of corrosives on her larvae.Rick Riordan -- The Trials of Apollo
- She's responsible for plagues, sickness, and catastrophes; she's immune to fire, radiation, toxins, corrosives, disease, and aging.Rebecca Skloot -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- Probably one in four carried disease, and those who did not spread their own corrosive discouragement.David G. McCullough -- 1776
- His throat burned as if he'd swallowed corrosive chemicals.James Dashner -- The Kill Order
corrosive = harmful chemical