amalgam
noun
1. an alloy of mercury with another metal (usually silver) used by dentists to fill cavities in teeth; except for iron and platinum all metals dissolve in mercury and chemists refer to the resulting mercury mixtures as amalgams
Definition categories: substance, alloy, metal
2. a combination or blend of diverse things
- his theory is an amalgam of earlier ideas
Definition categories: group, combination
verb
1. (archaic, transitive, intransitive) To amalgamate.