cement
English
WOTD – 17 May 2016
Etymology
From Middle English syment, cyment, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum (“quarry stone; stone chips for making mortar”), from caedō (“I cut, hew”). Doublet of cementum.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /səˈmɛnt/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) Audio (Southern England) (file)
- (Southern American English) IPA(key): /ˈsi.mɛnt/
- Rhymes: -ɛnt
- Hyphenation: ce‧ment
Noun
cement (countable and uncountable, plural cements)
- (countable, uncountable) A powdered substance produced by firing (calcining) calcium carbonate (limestone) and clay that develops strong cohesive properties when mixed with water. The main ingredient of concrete.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
- (uncountable) The paste-like substance resulting from mixing such a powder with water, or the rock-like substance that forms when it dries.
- (uncountable) Any material with strong adhesive and cohesive properties such as binding agents, glues, grout.
- (figurative) A bond of union; that which unites firmly, as persons in friendship or in society.
- the cement of our love
- (anatomy) The layer of bone investing the root and neck of a tooth; cementum.
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
a powdered substance
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the paste-like substance
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any material with strong adhesive and cohesive properties
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also
Verb
cement (third-person singular simple present cements, present participle cementing, simple past and past participle cemented)
- (transitive) To affix with cement.
- (transitive) To overlay or coat with cement.
- to cement a cellar floor
- (transitive, figurative) To unite firmly or closely.
- c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
- For they have entertained cause enough
To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cement their divisions and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.
- 1840, John Dunlop, The Universal Tendency to Association in Mankind. Analyzed and Illustrated, London: Houlston and Stoneman, page 103:
- Olympic Games. — Besides the ordinary confederacies that join independent states together, a singular federal bond is remarkable in the Olympic games, which for many ages cemented the Grecian commonwealths by a joint tie of recreation and religious ritual.
- (figuratively) To make permanent.
- 1758, David Hume, “Essay XXII. Of Polygamy and Divorces.”, in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, new edition, London: Printed for A[ndrew] Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, at Edinburgh, →OCLC, page 115:
- But friendſhip is a calm and ſedate affection, conducted by reaſon and cemented by habit; ſpringing from long acquaintance and mutual obligations; without jealouſies or fears; and without thoſe feveriſh fits of heat and cold, which cauſe ſuch an agreeable torment in the amorous paſſion.
- 2016 March 27, Daniel Taylor, “Eric Dier seals England’s stunning comeback against Germany”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 22 April 2016:
- [Dele] Alli’s ability to break forward from midfield was a prominent feature and the 19-year-old must have gone a long way to cementing his place in the team.
- 2024 February 15, Fani Willis, 38:21 from the start, in See Fani Willis' entire defiant testimony in stunning courtroom moment, MSNBC, archived from the original on February 16, 2024:
- Me and Mr. Wade, we are good friends. My respect for him has grown over these seven weeks of attacks. We are very good friends. I think but for these attacks, it would have been a friendship that, as life goes, we would have stopped having. I think that you have cemented that we'll be friends to the day we die.
Translations
to affix with cement
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to make permanent
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Dutch
Etymology
From Middle Dutch ciment, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /səˈmɛnt/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: ce‧ment
- Rhymes: -ɛnt
Derived terms
- cementmolen
- cementpoeder
- cementtegel
- cementvloer
- cementwater
- cementzak
- metselcement
Middle English
Polish
Etymology
Borrowed from German Zement, from late Middle High German cēment, from earlier zīment, zīmente, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈt͡sɛ.mɛnt/
Audio (file) - Rhymes: -ɛmɛnt
- Syllabification: ce‧ment
Declension
Romanian
Declension
Declension of cement
Serbo-Croatian
Etymology
Borrowed from German Zement, from Latin caementum (“quarry stone; stone chips for making mortar”), from caedo (“I cut, hew”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /t͡sěment/
- Hyphenation: ce‧ment
Swedish
Declension
Declension of cement | ||||
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Uncountable | ||||
Indefinite | Definite | |||
Nominative | cement | cementen | — | — |
Genitive | cements | cementens | — | — |
Related terms
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