To treat, impregnate, or disinfect something with carbolic acid (also called phenol), typically used in medical or sanitation contexts.
From 'carbolic' (relating to carbolic acid, from 'carbo-' plus the '-ol' suffix for alcohols) plus '-ate' (verb suffix). Common in late 19th-century medical terminology when carbolic acid was widely used as an antiseptic.
Carbolic acid revolutionized surgery when Joseph Lister used it as an antiseptic spray in the 1860s—it cut post-operative infection deaths by over half, proving for the first time that invisible germs, not 'bad air,' caused infection.
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