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Gunpowder   /gˈənpˌaʊdər/   Listen
noun
Gunpowder  n.  (Chem.) A black, granular, explosive substance, consisting of an intimate mechanical mixture of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur. It is used in gunnery and blasting. Note: Gunpowder consists of from 70 to 80 per cent of potassium nitraate (niter, saltpeter), with 10 to 15 per cent of each of the other ingredients. Its explosive energy is due to the fact that it contains the necessary amount of oxygen for its own combustion, and liberates gases (chiefly nitrogen and carbon dioxide), which occupy a thousand or fifteen hundred times more space than the powder which generated them.
Gunpowder pile driver, a pile driver, the hammer of which is thrown up by the explosion of gunpowder.
Gunpowder plot (Eng. Hist.), a plot to destroy the King, Lords, and Commons, in revenge for the penal laws against Catholics. As Guy Fawkes, the agent of the conspirators, was about to fire the mine, which was placed under the House of Lords, he was seized, Nov. 5, 1605. Hence, Nov. 5 is known in England as Guy Fawkes Day.
Gunpowder tea, a species of fine green tea, each leaf of which is rolled into a small ball or pellet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gunpowder" Quotes from Famous Books



... a time the copper was found to have become coated with sulphide, while the tin was largely converted into the explosive basic nitrate. The conditions are obviously the same as those found in the powder machinery, where bronze and tin solder are constantly in contact with moist gunpowder. The chemical action is probably this: the sulphur of the powder forms, with the copper of the bronze, copper sulphide; this is oxidized to sulphate, which reacts with the niter of the powder, forming potassium ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... disclosures of interest that day, but after that Chris spent all the time he could, both day and night, watching the young sailor. He was determined to discover if he could what Zachary intended to do with the gunpowder. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... you look upon as soaped poles in a bear- garden, which you set yourselves to climb and slide down again, with "shrieks of delight." When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with gunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think nearly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, taking the ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... shop. There are few boys who have not at some time of their boyhood had a mania for pyrotechnics—in plain English, fire-works—and there are few parents, and parents' neighbours, who can say that they relish the smell of gunpowder on their premises. ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... that the war should be fought out in France and not in England.[20] Then, in 1346, he won his famous victory of Crecy against overwhelming numbers of his enemies. It has been said that cannon were effectively used for the first time at Crecy, and it was certainly about this time that gunpowder began to assume a definite though as yet subordinate importance in warfare. But we need not go so far afield to explain the English victory. It lay in the quality of the fighting men. Through a century ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various


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