British spelling: to make something alkaline or increase its alkalinity by adding alkali or removing acid.
From 'alkaline' + British '-ise' suffix. British English consistently uses '-ise' for verbs while American English prefers '-ize,' a distinction dating to 18th-century printing conventions.
This spelling difference reveals how the British Empire's global reach locked two major variants of English into permanent coexistence—British and American chemists literally spell their verbs differently!
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