detonate
verbEtymology
First attested in 1729; either borrowed from French détoner or directly from Latin dētonātus, perfect passive participle of dētonō (“to thunder down (strongly); (figuratively, of a person) to thunder, speak threateningly, to rage; to stop thundering”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from dē- (“off, from”) + tonō (“to thunder”)). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂-. The current interlingual meaning seems to be a new formation in postclassical times (to thunder → make a large noise → explode), compare explode.
- derived from *(s)tenh₂-✻
- derived from dētonātus
- borrowed from détoner
Definitions
To explode, blow up
To cause to explode.
- The engineers detonated the dynamite and watched the old building collapse.
To express sudden anger.
- As Oscar turned to greet Yvonne, she could see every muscle in his body contract in anger. Then he detonated. “What the hell are you doing here without an appointment? […]
The neighborhood
- neighborstentorian
- neighborThor
- neighborthunder
- neighborThursday
- neighborcombust
Derived
detcord, detonatable, detonation, detonative, detonator, nondetonating, undetonated
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at detonate. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at detonate. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
8 hops · closes at detonate
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA