Definition of "effloresce" [ef•flo•resce]

• To blossom; bloom. (verb-intransitive)
• Chemistry To become a powder by losing water of crystallization, as when a hydrated crystal is exposed to air. (verb-intransitive)
• Chemistry To become covered with a powdery deposit. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They will dug fake tunnels, tunnel that leads to dead ends, tunnels that impossibly knot into themselves, tunnels with sonar-cancelling pings, tunnels that lead to police headquarters, tunnels that effloresce into a thicket of infinitely bifurcating tunnels, and tunnels that lead to other dimensions."
• "The newspaper age was dawning in America, an age that would effloresce into mass communications and the formation of a transformative popular culture."
• "A great deal of chemical action then commences, salts of various kinds effloresce on the surface, and the mass becomes hard."