Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Condensation?

\Con`den*sa"tion\, n. [L. condensatio: cf. F. condensation.] 1. The act or process of condensing or of being condensed; the state of being condensed. He [Goldsmith] was a great and perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of selection and condensation. --Macaulay. 2. (Physics) The act or process of reducing, by depression of temperature or increase of pressure, etc., to another and denser form, as gas to the condition of a liquid or steam to water. 3. (Chem.) A rearrangement or concentration of the different constituents of one or more substances into a distinct and definite compound of greater complexity and molecular weight, often resulting in an increase of density, as the condensation of oxygen into ozone, or of acetone into mesitylene. {Condensation product} (Chem.), a substance obtained by the polymerization of one substance, or by the union of two or more, with or without separation of some unimportant side products. {Surface condensation}, the system of condensing steam by contact with cold metallic surfaces, in distinction from condensation by the injection of cold water.