Science: what is sublimation?

Tutoring science, you cover changes of state. The tutor defines sublimation and relates an example.

Sublimation means the change from solid to gas state without becoming liquid in between.

In everyday life, sublimation is seldom observed, but there is a great example I heard from a science teacher in elementary school:

Imagine hanging clothes to dry outside on a bright, cold winter day when it’s -10°C. At first, the clothes will freeze on the line. Yet, after a few days they will be dry, even though the temp has been -10°C the whole time. Obviously, the water in the clothes couldn’t have thawed, then evaporated. It could only have sublimated (aka sublimed).

To appreciate the anecdote above, it helps to have lived in a place with cold winters where, even then, people hang their laundry to dry.

Source:

Mish, Frederick C. (editor). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 2004.

Mortimer, Charles E. Chemistry, sixth edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1986.