Dictionary

allotropize en · VERB

Etymology

From allotrope + -ize.

Meanings

1. To change in physical properties but not in substance; to alter the state, crystalline structure or appearance of a chemical while leaving it's atomic composition the same, such as the change of pure carbon from graphite to diamond or a buckyball.
   • On the contrary, the Bible is not, in its literary form, a diamond brilliant. It is rather pure gold, which can stand the crucible of acids, the fire and the oxygen. It neither rusts, corrupts nor allotropizes. 1894 May 5, William Elliot Griffis, “The Translatability of the Scriptures”, in Michigan Christian Advocate, volume 20, number 18, page 2:
   • as long as you heat or cool a Chemical be all the guises of Heat and Cold, Local or Cosmical, you can allotropize it, or change the Chemical's aspects and properties vastly. 1888, Thomas Wright Hall, Correlation Theory of Chemical Action and Affinity, page 349:
   • He who would allotropize sluggish oxygen into ozone to a measure of alchemical activity, reducing it to its pure essence (for which there are means), would discover thereby a substitute for an "Elixir of Life" and prepare it for practical use. 1893, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, page 168:

Forms