[ad. L. explōsiōn-em, n. of action f. explōdĕre to EXPLODE. Cf. Fr. explosion.] The action of exploding.
† 1. The action of treating with scorn, rejecting or scouting (a notion, system, etc.); rejection.
1656–81. Blount, Glossogr., Explosion, a casting off or rejecting, a hissing a thing out.
1783. Pott, Chirurg. Wks., II. 8. The explosion of the long continued notion that such wounds were poisonous.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 27. Observation and reason long ago triumphed in its [Ptolemaic System’s] explosion, and universal rejection by the learned.
2. The action of driving out, or of issuing forth, with violence and noise; an instance of the same; † spec. a volcanic eruption.
[1623–6. Cockeram, Explosion, a driuing out.]
1667. Phil. Trans., II. 601. Producing them [animal Motions] by a kind of Explosion or Shooting.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, III. (1723), 157. Those Parts of the Earth which abound with Strata of Stone … are the most furiously shatter’d … an Event observable not only in this but all other Explosions whatever.
1704. Newton, Opticks, III. i. (1721), 317. [In Gun-powder] the Spirit of the Nitre being … rarified into Vapour, rushes out with Explosion…; the Sulphur also … augments the Explosion.
1772. Ann. Reg., 71/2. I am … convinced that the whole of it [the soil] has been formed by explosion.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 363. The garrison … was alarmed with frequent explosions of fire and smoke, emitted from the mountain.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., I. ii. § 18 (1864), 52. A momentary increase of the expiratory force … so as to amount to an explosion, or a shot, which propels the material out of the tube.
1862. Darwin, Fertil. Orchids, iv. 130. The sudden explosion of viscid matter.
fig. 1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 35. The right one [word] … that at the explosion made such a goodly report?
1804. J. Grahame, Sabbath, 835 (1805), 64. Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise In slow explosion.
b. Explosive utterance (of a sound).
1879. H. Sweet, in Philol. Soc. Trans., 471. The initial voiceless stops have a stronger explosion than in English.
3. Of a gas, gunpowder, etc.: The action of ‘going off’ with a loud noise under the influence of suddenly developed internal energy; an instance of this; also used of electric discharges. Of a boiler, bomb, gun, etc.: The action of suddenly bursting or flying in pieces from a similar cause.
1744. Thomson, Summer, 1120. Following slower, in Explosion vast, The Thunder raises his tremendous voice.
1762. Symmer, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 495, IV. 453. The explosion of this bomb proved to be but the bursting of a bubble.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 94. When the discharge [of a glass jar, battery, etc.] is considerable, it is often called an explosion.
1807. T. Thomson, Chem. (ed. 3), II. 15. When electric explosions are made to pass through this gas.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 232. The discharge will fire the powder, and the explosion of the latter will throw off the roof.
1864. Webster, Explosion (Steam-eng.), the shattering of a boiler by a sudden and immense pressure, in distinction from rupture.
1867. W. W. Smyth, Coal & Coal-mining, 134. The tendency … of the results of explosion to spread through the entire colliery.
attrib. 1828. J. M. Spearman, Brit. Gunner (ed. 2), 81. The explosion bulk-head, of three-inch plank.
b. The resulting noise; a detonation.
1775. in Ash.
1855. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8), IX. 456. The explosion resembled the discharge of hundreds of cannon fired at once.
Mod. Didn’t you hear the explosion? Explosions are still heard at intervals.
c. transf. (Phys.)
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Explosion, an Action of the Animal spirits, whereby the Nerves are suddenly drawn together, when some Particles of a different kind are mixed with the Spirits, by which they are violently expanded, or spread forth and driven into confusion, like the parts of fired Gun-powder.
1878. Holbrook, Hyg. Brain, 37. Life is a continual explosion of nerve material.
1883. Maudsley, Body & Will, III. iii. 261. The exquisitely fine and complex organisation of nerve-structure is damaged by the intense molecular commotion which is the condition of the epileptic explosion.
4. A breaking or bursting forth into sudden activity; an outbreak, outburst (of anger, indignation, laughter, etc.).
1817. Coleridge, Lit. Rem., I. 51. When novelties explode around us in all directions [etc.]. But alas! explosion has followed explosion so rapidly that novelty itself ceases to appear new.
1817. Ld. Castlereagh, in Parl. Deb., 279. A desperate conspiracy which threatened an explosion, and which had, in point of fact, exploded already.
1827. Scott, Highl. Widow. v. Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son’s passion.
1844. H. Rogers, Ess., I. ii. 90. If there was any explosion at all, it was an explosion of merriment.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 146. This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people everywhere refused to pay taxes.
Hence Explosionist, one who is addicted to planning explosions.
1868. Chester Chron., 1 Feb., 8/1. There were ‘meetings’ among the few explosionists.
1880. Daily Tel., 13 Nov., 5/2. In some respects the Nihilist explosionists are guiltier than the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.
1883. Birm. Weekly Post, 14 April, 4/6. The explosionists are quite as well acquainted with the imbecility of our laws as with the potency of dynamite.
