Opacifiers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Substances added to materials to make them opaque or less transparent
2. Agents used in various industries, especially in coatings and plastics, to block light transmission
3. Compounds utilized to improve the visibility of products by preventing see-through effects

Etymology: The word is a plain formation: "opacify" plus the agent suffix "-er", meaning a thing that makes something opaque. The verb "opacify" comes from Latin "opacus", "shaded" or "dark", and it is the Latin root that gives English its sense of blocking light. The suffix has a longer ancestry. The "-er" ending descends from Latin "-arius", which passed into Old French as "-ier" and into Middle English as "-er", and it is the same suffix found in words like "baker" and "teacher." Because the word is a straightforward combination, its history lies mostly in the sense it expresses: a substance chosen specifically for its ability to hide what lies behind it. Its plural "opacifiers" simply refers to several such substances, so the word has no separate history of its own beyond the singular form.