pseudoradical

plural pseudoradicals

1. One who only claims or appears to be a political radical.

   He protests the war in Vietnam, but looks with contempt on the hate-filled pseudoradicals who preach the politics of violence.

   2007 September 9, Karen Durbin, “Breaking Through”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2021

2. mathematicsThe intersection of the set of nonzero prime ideals of a ring.
3. chemistryAn atom or group within a molecule which behaves like a free radical due to high valence.

   These pseudoradicals are not directly chain carriers in the reduction of peroxydisulfate, but they can further build up oxygen radical ions.

   2002, Willy J. Masschelein, Rip G. Rice, Ultraviolet Light in Water and Wastewater Sanitation, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 53

   1 more example

   As suggested by Weinmayr in this example, the reaction proceeds by a different mechanism, not with the formation of free radicals but rather with separation of the C — Hg bond, thus producing pseudoradicals which do not diffuse into the reaction medium.

   1971, Ernest I. Becker, Minoru Tsutsui, Organometallic Reactions, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN

comparative more pseudoradical · superlative most pseudoradical

1. Claiming or appearing to be politically radical, but not actually so.