GUNPOWDER PLOT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Gunpowder Plot

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/gˈənpˌaʊdər plɑt/ 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.

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Etymology of 'Gunpowder Plot'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gunpowder plot" Quotes from Famous Books

... the silly little brain imagined everything possible and impossible; sometimes that thieves were breaking in—sometimes that the house was on fire—sometimes that she should be smothered with pillows, like the princes in the Tower, for the sake of her title—sometimes that the Gunpowder Plot would be acted under ...

— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... silence. The Duke comes forward to the table. He taps his fingers sagely. He looks mysteriously at his fellow pirates. They put their heads together. The Duke sinks his voice. In such posture and accent was the gunpowder plot ...

— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... feelings of a large portion of it in respect of their catholic countrymen—a fact which gave strength to the position of the puritans in asserting the essential identity of episcopalian with catholic politics. Almost forty years had elapsed since the Gunpowder Plot; the queen was a catholic; the episcopalian party was itself at length endangered by the extension and development of the very principles on which they had themselves broken away from the church of Rome; and the catholics were friendly to the government ...

— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... thanksgiving all over the country, and it became the custom that, on the 5th of November—the day when the gunpowder plot was to have taken effect—there should be bonfires and fireworks, and Guy Fawkes' figure burnt, but people are getting wiser now, and think it better not to keep up the memory ...

— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge