shrapnel

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“
The HMTA powder acts as micro-shrapnel which is very lethal at close range (about 4 meters or 13 feet), but loses momentum very quickly due to air resistance, coming to a halt within approximately 40 times the diameter of the charge.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Fragments from an exploded artillery shell, mine, or bomb.
  2. noun A 19th-century artillery shell containing metal balls, designed to explode in the air above enemy troops.
  3. noun The metal balls in such a weapon.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (29)

  • To extract the shrapnel was the only chance, and this involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known as the speech-centre, and taking from it what was embedded there. —  Collected Stories
  • I'd worked a dozen before and never found anyone until I found Peter Duponçeau, a fellow vet, in a VA Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island Not long after I had caught a bullet from a Nazi sniper at Monte Cassino, he collected a chest full of shrapnel from a Japanese bombardment on a small island called Saipan. —  AHMM, September 2006
  • Six team members were wounded by glass and shrapnel, and two -- Tharanga Paranavitana and Thilan Samaraweera -- were shot in the chest and leg, respectively. —  CNN.com
  • The investigator was hit twice and sprayed by broken glass shrapnel, and "went down," as cops clinically say, behind his car. —  The Gazette-Enterprise: News
  • The Perth Mint has issued Australia's first legal tender Anzac "shrapnel" - a $1 coin to commemorate this year's Anzac Day. —  News
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. After Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), British army officer.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Named after the British Gen. Shrapnel (died 1842).
 

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/ˈʃræpnɛl/
by American Heritage

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