phosphate

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Any salt or ester of phosphoric acid.

   “Make sure you don’t use detergents with phosphates or nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants, but that information is rarely available on the labels.”

   “Bony fishes were judicious in their use of phosphate as a building material: their teeth, a few parts of the skeleton, and that was it.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Any fertiliser containing phosphate compounds.
3. (countable, uncountable)Guano (containing high levels of phosphates and harvested for the fertiliser industry).
4. (US, countable, dated, regional, uncountable)A carbonated soft drink containing phosphoric acid, often flavored with a fruit-based syrup.

   “An egg phosphate is a phosphate to which an egg has been added in the proper manner. While an egg phosphate can be flavored with any syrup that makes a good phosphate, still the standard flavor by long usage has com to be orange […]”

   ““This man here,” she said, “can make you a cherry Coke or a chocolate Coke or a phosphate — a chocolate phosphate or. “Vanilla phosphate,” the man helped, “cherry phosphate, orange phosphate, lime phosphate, lemon phosphate,”

   “You order California burgers for us both, even though I don't eat lettuce or tomato, then you order me a phosphate, cherry, a dreadful fizzy drink you say you always loved. It's bitter, bubbly, unbearable; but, thirsty for your past, force myself to drink it.”

verb

1. To treat or coat with a phosphate or phosphoric acid.