deliquesce

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2025 is:

deliquesce • \del-ih-KWESS\  • verb

Deliquesce can mean "to dissolve or melt away" or, in reference to some fungal structures (such as mushroom gills), "to become soft or liquid with age or maturity."

// The mushrooms deliquesced into an inky fluid.

See the entry >

Examples:

"He would mould his figures in full in wax, then take a hot knife and—like a metaphysical surgeon—cut away triangles, rhomboids, flaps and scraps, until only a latticework was left. These new shapeshifting figures comprised more gaps than joins: bodies in the delicate, arduous process of shedding their skins, scattering into metal petals, being eroded and deliquesced. Things were freshly able to pass through these painstakingly hard-to-cast bronzes: light, air, sight." — Robert Macfarlane, Apollo, 1 May 2025

Did you know?

Deliquesce comes from the prefix de- ("from, down, away") and a form of the Latin verb liquēre, meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When deliquesce is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures."