English Explanatory Dictionary

explode

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. To fly apart with sudden violent force; to blow up, to burst, to detonate, to go off.
  2. To destroy with an explosion.
  3. To make a violent or emotional outburst; to suddenly give expression to powerful and often negative or unpleasant emotion, especially anger.
  4. To increase suddenly.
  5. To increase arbitrarily or boundlessly.
  6. To destroy violently or abruptly.
  7. To create an exploded view of.
  8. To disprove or debunk.
  9. To emerge suddenly.
  10. To ejaculate.
  11. To break (a delimited string of text) into several smaller strings by removing the separators.
  12. To decompress (data) that was previously imploded.

Pronunciation

/ɪkˈspləʊd/ /ɪkˈsploʊd/ En-us-explode.ogg LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-explode.wav

Word forms

explode explodes exploding exploded no-table-tags glossary explodest explodedst explodeth asplode esplode

Etymology

First recorded around 1538, from the Latin verb explōdere (“drive out or off by clapping”). The meaning was originally theatrical, "to drive an actor off the stage by making noise," hence meaning to "to drive out" or "to reject". From ex- (“out”) + plaudere (“to clap; to applaud”). In English it used to mean to "drive out with violence and sudden noise" (from around 1660), and later meaning to "go off with a loud noise" (from around 1790). The sense of "bursting with destructive force" is first recorded around 1882.

Synonyms

asplode blast blow blow up burst detonate displode dynamite explode fulminate go off let off nuke rive set off split unstring

Antonyms

implode

Related words

explosion explosive implode implosive applaud

Derived words

explodability explodable exploded exploder explodey exploding exploding cucumber exploding head syndrome explodium kerplode kersplode unexplode
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