borax

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

borax (uncountable)

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 crystallisation; sodium tetraborate.

• E285 when used as a preservative

borax (not comparable)

1. Cheap or tawdry, referring to furniture or other works of industrial design.

• “Borax” in David Barthelmy, Webmineral Mineralogy Database, 1997–.
• “borax”, in Mindat.org‎, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, accessed 29 August 2016.
• borax at the Free Dictionary