Word.ws English Dictionary

elephant's toothpaste

elephant's toothpaste noun: a foamy substance caused by the rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide using potassium iodide as a catalyst; the outcome of a popular educational experiment in chemistry.

Noun

elephant's toothpaste (uncountable)

  1. A foamy substance caused by the rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide using potassium iodide as a catalyst; the outcome of a popular educational experiment in chemistry.

Forms of elephant's toothpaste

alternative formelephant toothpaste

Origin of elephant's toothpaste

The foamy texture and size of the resulting mass suggest a large amount of toothpaste, as might be imagined to be used by a large creature like an elephant.

Questions about elephant's toothpaste

What does elephant's toothpaste mean?
Elephant's toothpaste means a foamy substance caused by the rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide using potassium iodide as a catalyst; the outcome of a popular educational experiment in chemistry.
What part of speech is elephant's toothpaste?
Elephant's toothpaste is a noun.

Words near elephant's toothpaste in the dictionary

  1. elephant's leg
  2. elephant's snout volute
  3. elephant's snout volutes
  4. elephant's teeth
  5. elephant's tooth
  6. elephant's toothpaste
  7. elephant's trunk
  8. elephant-ear trees
  9. elephant-foot yam
  10. elephant-foot yams
  11. Elephanta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elephant's toothpaste (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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