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My on-line checking of the term "Rinsate" did not provide a clear answer - generally the dictionaries didn't list it. What do others here think?
Here is how I use it: Rinsate - the effluent from the process of rinsing a container; often containing contaminates. For example, the used gallon jug of pesticide needs to be triple-rinsed and the rinsate collected for proper disposal.
It is a new word to me. As a technical term, it's not surprising that it might not be found in common dictionaries. I googled it, and found it in a lot of government and education sites and publications. I would consider these sources to be credible.
A search of Google books shows the term used in a number of technical publications:
rinsate
I think you have a winner.
I think contaminant would be more standard as the noun form. But I can see how, in the context of lots of nominalized words ending in -ate -- nouns that are the product of a process (see 3. below) -- that contaminate (noun) might pop up from time to time. It could help distinguish between something that contaminates something else, as a source of contamination, the contaminant: "Hydrocarbons are the primary contaminant in this lake.", versus the final product of contamination, the contaminate (noun), e.g. the lake water, now contaminated by hydrocarbons.
-ate
...
2. forming nouns a chemical compound, esp a salt or ester of an acid ⇒ "carbonate", "stearate"
3. forming nouns the product of a process ⇒ "condensate"
I can't say that I've ever seen contaminate (noun) before. It does appear to be a technical term, and I'm not in that field.
But this recent focus on the productive suffix -ate to indicate the product of a process does cause me to muse about other -ate words that I have been neglecting to coin:
celebrate: the wreckage after a party. "Can you help me pick up the empty bottles and paper cups and haul all this celebrate out to the curb?"
legislate: the arabesque chaos created by Congress "Only Congress would have the audacity to produce such legislate as the Fiscal Cliff, then applaud themselves for narrowly escaping it."
inundate: the detritus left after a flood, i.e. grounded flotsam. "Much of Belmar will be closed this Sunday to facilitate the removal of sand and other inundate from the major thoroughfares."
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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