GUNPOWDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gunpowder mean? 

• GUNPOWDER (noun)
  The noun GUNPOWDER has 1 sense:

1. a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur in a 75:15:10 ratio which is used in gunnery, time fuses, and fireworks

  Familiarity information: GUNPOWDER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUNPOWDER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur in a 75:15:10 ratio which is used in gunnery, time fuses, and fireworks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

gunpowder; powder

Hypernyms ("gunpowder" is a kind of...):

explosive (a chemical substance that undergoes a rapid chemical change (with the production of gas) on being heated or struck)

 Context examples 

They are made pleasant to some, but I would more rather give my boys gunpowder to play with than this bad trash.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder; who likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

That speech was like gunpowder.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I'd better burn the house down, I suppose, than let other people blow themselves up with my gunpowder, she thought as she watched the Demon of the Jura whisk away, a little black cinder with fiery eyes.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)