later-, lateral-, -late, -lat, -lation, -lative

1. To remove or dissipate by melting, vaporization, erosion, etc.; for example, to ablate a metal surface with intense heat.
2. In medicine, to excise, amputate, or otherwise destroy the biological function; for example, of a body tissue.
3. To remove by erosion, melting, evaporation, vaporization, wearing, or wasting away.

1. Surgical excision, removal, or amputation of a body part or tissue.
2. The erosive processes by which a glacier is reduced; wearing or wasting away.
3. In aerospace: The dissipation of heat generated by atmospheric friction; especially, in the atmospheric reentry of a spacecraft or missile, by means of a melting heat shield.

1. Taking away or removing.BR> 2. Tending to ablate; that is, to be removed or vaporized at very high temperature: "The ablative material on a rocket cone fell off."
3. In grammar, applied to one of the cases of the noun in Latin and some other Indo-European languages; the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away. indicating direction away from, or time when.

In some inflected languages, noting a case that has among its functions the indication of place from which or, as in Latin, place in which, manner, means, instrument, or agent.

The outer surface of a spacecraft or missile.

Ablation is the erosion of the protective outer surface (ablator) of a spacecraft or missile resulting from aerodynamic heating caused by travel at hypersonic speeds during reentry through the atmosphere.

1. A reference to the world's second largest ocean, which separates Europe and Africa from North and South America. Area: 82,400,000 sq. km. (31,800,000 sq. mi.).
2. Relating to or bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

1. A mass spectrometer, an electromagnetic apparatus for separating isotopes of uranium according to mass.

Its name is a combination of California University + tron (Cal+U+tron) in tribute to the University of California, Ernest O. Lawrence's institution and the contractor of the Los Alamos laboratory. It was developed during the Manhattan Project and was similar to the cyclotron invented by Lawrence.

2. A device that separates isotopes by ionizing the sample, accellerating the ions in a strong electric field, and then passing them through a strong magnetic field.

1. Inclined, or intended, to waste time, to cause a delay, to gain time, and to lag behind.
2. Using cautious slow strategy to wear down the opposition; and so, avoiding direct confrontation and deferring a decision: "The congressman used a dilatory strategy to keep the bill from being passed."
3. Etymology: from Latin dilatorius; from dilator, "procrastinator", from dilatus, the past participle form of differe, "to delay".