Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An explosive mixture composed of nitroglycerine, guncotton, wood pulp, and potassium nitrate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A trade-name for an explosive of the dynamite class, consisting of 65 parts of gelatin (96 percent, nitroglycerin and 4 per cent. nitrocotton) and 35 parts of dope (75 per cent. sodium nitrate, 1 per cent. sodium carbonate, and 24 per cent. wood-pulp).
Wiktionary
WordNet 3.0
- n. a type of dynamite in which the nitroglycerin is absorbed in a base of wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate
Etymologies
- gel(atin) + Latin ignis, fire + -ite1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Gun cotton and gelignite were used the former to cut steelwork and the latter to destroy the piers supporting the spans.”
“The bridge roadways were cut by suspending a cradle underneath, placing boxes of gelignite on the cradle and then hauling the whole contraption up tight against the under-surface of the roadway.”
“The fat beared imbeciles, otherwise known as the F. B.I, running into each other as they try to ignite each other's gelignite laden jock straps; tripping over placards as they troop glumly into court.”
Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I...
“It was the day they found the valise in Waterloo with enough gelignite to blow a train engine through the south wall, so the papers said.”
“Later, for the Land Commission, I dug ditches and drains, using sticks of gelignite to blast out large rocks.”
“Dynamite, gelignite, TNT, black and smokeless powder, even military plastique and straight nitro.”
“In his Mirror column today, the impeccably-connected Labour polemicist Kevin Maguire proposes Balls for Number 11 as if this was manifestly a good thing rather than the stick of political gelignite it would actually be.”
“It can fool you into thinking there are Scotsmen who are worth the gelignite it would take to blow them back to hell.”
“Born in a Durham mining village in 1914, Eddie Chapman enlisted in the Coldstream Guards, but he soon discovered Soho, girls, and gambling, was discharged for going AWOL, and turned to petty crime, less petty when he graduated to gelignite and safecracking.”
“I am reminded horribly of the period 1994-7 when the prospective successors to John Major jostled for position, all making speeches coated in plausible deniability but with a core of political gelignite: vote for me as the next leader.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gelignite’.
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Mirrored Vowels
Rules:
• The word must have an even number of vowels.
• There must be four or more vowels; thus, at minimum, an A-A-A-A or A-B-B-A pattern.
• The vowels must appear in a mir...feminine, solicitor, caruncular, repackager, semiprimes, fetishises, decomposer, demonlover, recomposer, sepultures, lipotropic, colesterol and 385 more...
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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Gee, that's hard and soft!
Words that contain both a "hard G" and a "soft G".
gauge, garage, gorge, gorgeous, gigantic, grudge, glurge, begrudge, garbage, grunge, engage, disgorge and 24 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, G
grocer, gabanergic, gabardine, gabbro, gaffe, gneiss, grapple, grosgrain, grommet, gratify, gossamer, goofy and 194 more...
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seanahan's Words
lacustrine, indubitably, masala, balustrade, arcane, gambit, bagatelle, demonstrative, epicaricacy, cacophony, archetype, picaresque and 418 more...
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Peter Carey's Illywhacker
Culling my "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list. Thanks for the idea, yarb.
tinea, mingy, blanco, bitzer, mallee fowl, yabbies, coir, bluey, stoush, barney, currawong, providore and 43 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gelignite.
chained_bear "And coming back after a big storm! That was the go. The road blocked by fallen trees. How he had loved shifting them.
They called him 'Jack the Gelly' in Point's Point.
He blasted those trees with gelignite and never, as long as he did it, did he ever learn to carry enough fuse so as they approached home the fuses would be shorter and shorter...."
—Peter Carey, Illywhacker, 89 Apr 14, 2009
seanahan Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell Oct 9, 2007