What does gunpowder mean?

Definitions for gunpowder
ˈgʌnˌpaʊ dərgun·pow·der

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word gunpowder.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. gunpowder, powdernoun

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

Wiktionary

  1. gunpowdernoun

    An explosive mixture of saltpetre (potassium nitrate), charcoal and sulphur; formerly used in gunnery but now mostly used in fireworks.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Gunpowdernoun

    The powder put into guns to be fired. It consists of about twenty parts of nitre, three parts of sulphur, and three of charcoal. The proportions are not exactly kept.

    Etymology: gun and powder.

    Gunpowder consisteth of three ingredients, saltpetre, small-coal, and brimstone. Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errours, b. ii.

    Burning by gunpowder frequently happens at sea. Richard Wiseman.

Wikipedia

  1. Gunpowder

    Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines and road building. Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn at subsonic speeds), whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. Nonetheless, it was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use. Gunpowder is one of the Four Great Inventions of China. Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, it was first used for warfare around 904 AD. Its use in weapons has declined due to smokeless powder replacing it, and it is no longer used for industrial purposes due to its relative inefficiency compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.

ChatGPT

  1. gunpowder

    Gunpowder is a black powder that explodes when it is ignited, used primarily as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. It's made from a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Its invention, attributed to Chinese alchemists, marked the beginning of the use of explosives in warfare and hunting.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Gunpowdernoun

    a black, granular, explosive substance, consisting of an intimate mechanical mixture of niter, charcoal, and sulphur. It is used in gunnery and blasting

Wikidata

  1. Gunpowder

    Gunpowder, also known since the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid-1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate —with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpetre works as an oxidizer. Because of its burning properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. Gunpowder was, according to prevailing academic consensus, discovered in the 7th century in China, attributed to Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. Practically, merely using accidentally-chosen rocks containing natural saltpeter in a wood fire would generate very noticable visible acceleration of combustion. The earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song Dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China. In the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Arab world, Europe, and India. The technology spread from China through the Middle East, and then into Europe. The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century.

The Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz

  1. GUNPOWDER

    A black substance much employed in marking the boundary lines of nations.

Dictionary of Nautical Terms

  1. gunpowder

    The well-known explosive composition which, for its regularity of effect and convenience in manufacture and use, is still preferred for general purposes to all the new and more violent but more capricious agents. In England it is composed of 75 parts saltpetre to 10 sulphur and 15 charcoal; these proportions are varied slightly in different countries. The ingredients are mixed together with great mechanical nicety, and the compound is then pressed and granulated. On the application of fire it is converted into gas with vast explosive power, but subject to tolerably well-known laws.

Military Dictionary and Gazetteer

  1. gunpowder

    A well-known explosive mixture, whose principal employment is in the discharge, for war or sport, of projectiles from fire-arms, and for mining purposes. The ingredients in gunpowder are saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur. Slightly different proportions are employed in different countries. In the United States the proportions are 75 to 76 saltpetre, 14 to 15 charcoal, and 10 sulphur. Charcoal is the combustible ingredient; saltpetre furnishes the oxygen necessary to support a rapid combustion and to change the whole mass into gas, and sulphur adds consistency to the mixture and intensity to the flame, besides rendering the powder less liable to absorb moisture; increases the volume of gas by preventing the formation of a solid potassium carbonate, and by increasing the temperature.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of gunpowder in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of gunpowder in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6

Examples of gunpowder in a Sentence

  1. The Case:

    Old associates of the housepainter/alleged serial killer claim that, a few years prior to Poste’s 2018 death at 80, he had quietly given away his weapons, pistol parts, gunpowder, bullets and shell casings – more than a thousand, involving 25 different calibers – to his favorite locals, and most of these peculiar ‘gifts’ have remained in basements and closets, untouched, ever since.

  2. Andre Maurois:

    We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - gunpowder and romantic love.

  3. Pavel Durov:

    Whenever technological advancement is made it can always be used both for good or for bad, you can compare it with the invention of gunpowder for example : Once the secret is out there, it doesn't make sense to force your local users of gunpowder to make your gunpowder less efficient when the other side can still use it and use it in an efficient way.

  4. Claire Papoulias:

    The teacher was presenting a lesson and all of sudden I heard gunshots directly behind me. That’s when the shooter opened the back classroom door and started firing at my classmates in the back, wounding them. I smelled and saw the gunpowder, i thought I was going to die.

  5. Wendell Phillips:

    What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

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"gunpowder." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/gunpowder>.

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