borax

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)A white or gray/grey crystalline salt, with a slight alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors/colours on porcelain, and as a soap, etc.

   ““The best way to clean the machine is to put a pound of borax and a gallon of vinegar in the machine and run the longest, hottest cycle you have,” he says.”

2. (uncountable, usually)The sodium salt of boric acid, Na₂B₄O₇, either anhydrous or with 5 or 10 molecules of water of crystallization; sodium tetraborate.
3. (attributive, sometimes, uncountable, usually)Cheap or tawdry furniture or other works of industrial design.

   “Furniture isn't made to last thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-coded borax every seven years.”

verb

1. (transitive)To treat with borax.