| 释义 |
explosion|ɛkˈspləʊʒən|
[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.
1656–81Blount Glossogr., Explosion, a casting off or rejecting, a hissing a thing out. 1783Pott Chirurg. Wks. II. 8 The explosion of the long continued notion that such wounds were poisonous. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. I. 27 Observation and reason long ago triumphed in its [Ptolemaic System's] explosion, and universal rejection by the learned.
2. a. The action of driving out, or of issuing forth, with violence and noise; an instance of the same; † spec. a volcanic eruption.
[1623–6Cockeram, Explosion, a driuing out.] 1667Phil. Trans. II. 601 Producing them [animal Motions] by a kind of Explosion or Shooting. 1695Woodward 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. 1704Newton Optics 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. 1772Ann. Reg. 71/2, I am..convinced that the whole of it [the soil] has been formed by explosion. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. I. 363 The garrison..was alarmed with frequent explosions of fire and smoke, emitted from the mountain. 1855Bain 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. 1862Darwin Fertil. Orchids iv. 130 The sudden explosion of viscid matter.
fig.1670Eachard Cont. Clergy 35 The right one [word]..that at the explosion made such a goodly report. 1804J. Grahame Sabbath 835 Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise In slow explosion.
b. Explosive utterance (of a sound).
1879H. Sweet in Philol. Soc. Trans. 471 The initial voiceless stops have a stronger explosion than in English.
3. a. 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.
1744Thomson Summer 1120 Following slower, in Explosion vast, The Thunder raises his tremendous voice. 1762Symmer in Ellis Orig. Lett. ii. 495 IV. 453 The explosion of this bomb proved to be but the bursting of a bubble. c1790J. Imison Sch. Arts i. 94 When the discharge [of a glass jar, battery, etc.] is considerable, it is often called an explosion. 1807T. Thomson Chem. (ed. 3) II. 15 When electric explosions are made to pass through this gas. 1816J. Smith Panorama Sc. & Art II. 232 The discharge will fire the powder, and the explosion of the latter will throw off the roof. 1864Webster, Explosion (Steam-eng.), the shattering of a boiler by a sudden and immense pressure, in distinction from rupture. 1867W. W. Smyth Coal & Coal-mining 134 The tendency..of the results of explosion to spread through the entire colliery.
attrib.1828J. M. Spearman Brit. Gunner (ed. 2) 81 The explosion bulk-head, of three-inch plank.
b. The resulting noise; a detonation.
1775in Ash. 1855Encycl. 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.)
1706Phillips (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. 1878Holbrook Hyg. Brain 37 Life is a continual explosion of nerve material. 1883H. Maudsley Body & Will iii. iii. 261 The..complex organisation of nerve-structure is damaged by the intense molecular commotion which is the condition of the epileptic explosion.
d. Golf. An explosive (sense 3 b) shot. Also attrib.
1924C. J. H. Tolley Mod. Golfer x. 149 If the ball is lying well, you can either play an ‘explosion’ or take the ball cleanly. 1926Wodehouse Heart of Goof viii. 259 An explosion-shot out of the bunker on the fourteenth. 1957L. T. Stanley Fontana Golf Bk. 106 Explosion Shot. The most reliable recovery shot of all if played firmly.
4. a. A breaking or bursting forth into sudden activity; an outbreak, outburst (of anger, indignation, laughter, etc.).
1817Coleridge 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. 1817Ld. Castlereagh in Parl. Deb. 279 A desperate conspiracy which threatened an explosion, and which had, in point of fact, exploded already. 1827Scott Highl. Widow v, Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son's passion. 1844H. Rogers Ess. I. ii. 90 If there was any explosion at all, it was an explosion of merriment. 1848Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 146 This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people..refused to pay taxes.
b. A rapid or sudden marked increase or development; esp. in population explosion.
1953Time 19 Oct. 28/1 Latin America is in the midst of a ‘population explosion’. Its people are multiplying 2½ times as fast as the populations in the rest of the world. 1961‘R. Macdonald’ Wycherly Woman (1962) ii. 20 Those sudden institutions of learning that had been springing up..to handle the products of the wartime copulation explosion. 1961New Yorker 28 Oct. 43/2 After the population explosion came the home-run explosion, the rental explosion,..a piety explosion, a culture explosion, [etc.]. 1962P.M.L.A. LXXVII. ii. 4/2 We have all heard of ‘explosions’, of which the ‘population explosion’ is only one. Well, here is yet another type of explosion.., ‘the sky-rocketing volume of knowledge’. 1965Listener 4 Nov. 714/2 We must achieve..the contraception explosion before the population explosion. 1970Daily Tel. 17 Mar. 7/8 British Rail is being forced to join the current ‘wages explosion’ and concede new substantial pay increases.
5. attrib., as explosion point; explosion chamber, a chamber at the end of the cylinder of an internal combustion engine in which the charge is exploded; explosion machine (see quot.); explosion pipette, a pipette in which an explosive mixture of gases may be fired by an electric spark; so explosion-tube.
1888Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin., Explosion chamber, the hinder extension of a cylinder of a gas engine in which the charge is exploded. 1903Motoring Ann. 282 It reduces the space of the explosion chamber.
a1884Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., Explosion machine, a motor which depends for its force upon the explosion of substances generating a gas which is used under pressure in an engine or apparatus.
1901M. W. Travers Exper. Study Gases 136 In the earlier experiments the tap of the explosion pipette was lubricated with a hydrocarbon grease.
1890W. James Princ. Psychol. II. xviii. 75 The level of tension in the cells does not rise to the higher explosion-point. 1938W. S. Churchill Into Battle (1941) 17 The war-lust of Dictator Powers had reached its culminating explosion point.
1893Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. CLXXXIV. 550 By opening tap 8 quantities of the mixed gases are drawn over into the explosion-tube.
Hence exˈplosionist, one who is addicted to planning explosions.
1880Daily Tel. 13 Nov., In some respects the Nihilist explosionists are guiltier than the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. 1883Birm. Weekly Post 14 Apr. 4/6 The explosionists are quite as well acquainted with the imbecility of our laws as with the potency of dynamite. |