formic : Idioms & Phrases

• carbamic acid.

Webster 1913

• noun a colorless pungent fuming vesicatory liquid acid HCOOH found naturally in ants and many plants or made catalytically from carbon monoxide and steam; used in finishing textiles and paper and in the manufacture of insecticides and fumigants
  

WordNet

• a colorless, mobile liquid, HCO.OH, of a sharp, acid taste, occurring naturally in ants, nettles, pine needles, etc., and produced artifically in many ways, as by the oxidation of methyl alcohol, by the reduction of carbonic acid or the destructive distillation of oxalic acid. It is the first member of the fatty acids in the paraffin series, and is homologous with acetic acid.

Webster 1913