detonate
pronunciation
How to pronounce detonate in British English:
UK [ˈdetəneɪt]
How to pronounce detonate in American English:
US [ˈdɛtnˌet]
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- Verb:
- cause to explode
- explode
Word Origin
- detonate
- detonate: [18] Detonate is related to thunder. It comes from the past participle of Latin dētonāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘down’ and tonāre ‘thunder, roar’, which goes back to the same Indo-European base (*ten-, *ton-) as thunder. Latin dētonāre never actually meant ‘cause to explode’, though; that sense comes from its French descendant détoner.=> thunder
- detonate (v.)
- 1729, a back-formation from detonation, or else from Latin detonatus, past participle of detonare. Related: Detonated; detonating.
Example
- 1. But what zarqawi did not know was that the woman had failed to detonate her bomb .
- 2. When the computer calculates that the round has flown the requisite distance , it issues the instruction to detonate .
- 3. After they hit , there is a moment 's silence , and then they detonate , spraying their surroundings with flames .
- 4. The attack by umar farouk abdulmutallab , a nigerian , failed only because the explosives sewn into his underpants did not detonate fully .
- 5. And particularly now when just one individual can detonate a bomb that causes so much destruction , it is more important than ever that we pursue these strategies for peace .