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Historical Examples

It flameth white and candent like Camphire, but dissolveth not in aqua fortis, like it.
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Volume 2 of 3) Thomas Browne

A print from it, in aqua fortis, by Alessio Loyr, is mentioned Lett.
A Treatise on Painting Leonardo Da Vinci

Do not act and say, like Macleay versus Fleming, “I write with aqua fortis to bite into brass.”
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I (of II) Charles Darwin

But if in the dissolving there be aqua fortis, it sufficeth to calcine it.
A Discovrse of Fire and Salt (A Discourse of Fire and Salt) Blaise de Vigenre

In the two next processes we shall shew two other methods of separating Silver from aqua fortis.
Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chymistry, 5th ed. Pierre Joseph Macquer

The aqua fortis must not be too strong, or the wood will go brown or black.
Intarsia and Marquetry F. Hamilton Jackson

As to the Silver which remains dissolved in the aqua fortis, there are several ways to recover it.
Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chymistry, 5th ed. Pierre Joseph Macquer

Evidently this means what Vasari calls oil of sulphur, aqua fortis.
Intarsia and Marquetry F. Hamilton Jackson

So aqua fortis, whose ingredient is vitriol, will make white bodies black.
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Volume 2 of 3) Thomas Browne

The nitrous air gradually lost its elasticity, the bladder collapsed, and became yellow as if corroded by aqua fortis.
Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 Carl Wilhelm Scheele

noun
an obsolete name for nitric acid
n.

old name for “concentrated nitric acid,” c.1600, Latin, literally “strong water;” see aqua- + fort. So called for its power of dissolving metals (copper, silver) unaffected by other agents.