the.com/additive
Something small added to change everything, legally or chemically, your pick.
means A substance mixed into something else in small amounts to change its properties — flavor, color, shelf life, stability — without becoming the main ingredient itself.
from Traces back to the Latin verb addere, 'to add' (ad- 'to' plus dare 'to give'), through additivus, meaning 'that which is added.' The adjective form existed first in English, describing anything with the quality of adding to something else; the noun sense — a substance put into food, fuel, or other materials — is a much later, more technical spin-off, riding in on 20th-century chemistry and industry.
- food version
- keeps bread soft for weeks, unsettlingly
- math version
- property where order of adding never matters
- etymology
- from latin addere, to add to
- legal use
- contracts add it as extra terms, not subtract