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a colorless, pungent, suffocating, highly water-soluble, gaseous compound, NH 3 , usually produced by the direct combination of nitrogen and hydrogen gases: used chiefly for refrigeration and in the manufacture of commercial chemicals and laboratory reagents.
Also called ammonia solution, ammonia water, aqua ammoniae, aqua ammonia, aqueous ammonia. this gas dissolved in water; ammonium hydroxide.
Contemporary Examples

But the ammonia leak in November, and now the radiation leak and deteriorating tubes, might lead some to conclude otherwise.
Latest Accident at San Onofre Nuclear Plant Worries Activists, Residents Jamie Reno February 12, 2012

He instinctively knew it was coming from the 50-year-old fertilizer plant and ammonia storage facility a few blocks away.
They Saw It Coming: Life in West, Texas, After the Boom Christine Pelisek April 21, 2013

Is she back in the orphanage where it smells like ammonia and cooked cabbage?
When An Adopted Child Won’t Attach Tina Traster May 1, 2014

Historical Examples

Neutralise hydrosulphocyanic acid with ammonia, and gently evaporate the solution to dryness, by the heat of a water bath.
Cooley’s Cyclopdia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades…, Sixth Edition, Volume I Arnold Cooley

The second form in which nitrogen is present in soil is as ammonia.
Manures and the principles of manuring Charles Morton Aikman

Then a drop of ammonia will produce the green or somewhat bluish zone, which is much more persistent than that due to chlorine.
Cooley’s Practical Receipts, Volume II Arnold Cooley

The most of the nitrogen is present as uric acid and ammonia.
Manures and the principles of manuring Charles Morton Aikman

It is more abundant in this form than as ammonia; but still, compared with the organic nitrogen, its amount is trifling.
Manures and the principles of manuring Charles Morton Aikman

November: At work on the action of carbonate of ammonia on plants.
More Letters of Charles Darwin Charles Darwin

When mixed with the soil it ferments, and the nitrogen it contains is converted into ammonia.
Manures and the principles of manuring Charles Morton Aikman

noun
a colourless pungent highly soluble gas mainly used in the manufacture of fertilizers, nitric acid, and other nitrogenous compounds, and as a refrigerant and solvent. Formula: NH3
a solution of ammonia in water, containing the compound ammonium hydroxide
n.

1799, Modern Latin, coined 1782 by Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman (1735-1784) for gas obtained from sal ammoniac, salt deposits containing ammonium chloride found near temple of Jupiter Ammon (from Egyptian God Amun) in Libya, from Greek ammoniakos “belonging to Ammon.” The shrine was ancient already in Augustus’ day, and the salts were prepared “from the sands where the camels waited while their masters prayed for good omens” [Shipley].

There also was a gum form of sal ammoniac, from a wild plant that grew near the shrine, and across North Africa and Asia. A less likely theory traces the name to Greek Armeniakon “Armenian,” because the substance also was found in Armenia. Also known as spirit of hartshorn and volatile or animal alkali.

ammonia am·mo·nia (ə-mōn’yə)
n.
A colorless, pungent gas used to manufacture a wide variety of nitrogen-containing organic and inorganic chemicals.
ammonia
(ə-mōn’yə)
A colorless alkaline gas that is lighter than air and has a strongly pungent odor. It is used as a fertilizer and refrigerant, in medicine, and in making dyes, textiles, plastics, and explosives. Chemical formula: NH3.