Also adipocire. [a. Fr. adipocire (1787); f. L. adip-em fat + Fr. cire, L. cēra wax.] A greyish white fatty or saponaceous substance, chiefly Margarate of Ammonia, spontaneously generated in dead bodies buried in moist places or submerged in water; supposed to be produced by the reaction of ammonia upon the margarine and oleine of the animal fat and muscular fiber.
1803. Nicholson, Jrnl. Nat. Philos., 135. This fluid [alcohol] when boiling, dissolves about its own weight of adipocire.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 56/1. Adipocere … is a soap composed of margaric acid and ammonia.
1877. Roberts, Handbk. Med. (ed. 3), I. 63. The conversion of muscle into adipocere after death is a form of fatty degeneration.
