borax

Etymology

From Middle English boras, from Anglo-Norman boreis, from Medieval Latin baurach (“borax”), from Arabic بَوْرَق (bawraq), from Middle Persian bwlk' (bōrag), which yielded Persian بوره (bure).

noun

1. A white or gray/grey crystalline salt, with a slight alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors/colours on porcelain, and as a soap, etc.
2. (chemistry) The sodium salt of boric acid, Na₂B₄O₇, either anhydrous or with 5 or 10 molecules of water of crystallization; sodium tetraborate.
3. (sometimes attributive) Cheap or tawdry furniture or other works of industrial design.
   Furniture isn't made to last thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-coded borax every seven years. 1977, Harlan Ellison, Jeffty is Five

verb

1. (transitive) To treat with borax.