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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nitroglycerine
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ The Subway Series lumbers along like a freight train overloaded with nitroglycerine on a mountain pass.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
nitroglycerine

Nitroglycerin \Ni`tro*glyc"er*in\, Nitroglycerine \Ni`tro*glyc"er*ine\(n[imac]`tr[-o]*gl[i^]s"[~e]r*[i^]n), n. [Nitro- + glycerin.] (Chem.) A liquid appearing like a heavy oil, colorless or yellowish, and consisting of a mixture of several glycerin salts of nitric acid, and hence more properly called glycerin nitrate; also called trinitroglycerin and glyceryl trinitrate. It is made by the action of nitric acid on glycerin in the presence of sulphuric acid. It is extremely unstable and terribly explosive. A very dilute solution is used in medicine as a neurotic under the name of glonion.

Note: A great number of explosive compounds have been produced by mixing nitroglycerin with different substances; as, dynamite, or giant powder, nitroglycerin mixed with siliceous earth; lithofracteur, nitroglycerin with gunpowder, or with sawdust and nitrate of sodium or barium; Colonia powder, gunpowder with nitroglycerin; dualin, nitroglycerin with sawdust, or with sawdust and nitrate of potassium and some other substances; lignose, wood fiber and nitroglycerin.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nitroglycerine

also nitroglycerin, "explosive oily liquid," 1857, from nitro- + glycerin. So called either because it was obtained by treating glycerine with nitric and sulfuric acids or because it is essentially a nitrate (glyceryl trinitrate).

Wiktionary
nitroglycerine

n. (context organic compound English) The compound glyceryl-tri-nitrate or 1,2,3 tri-nitrooxy propane; the ester of glycerol with nitric acid; prepared by the careful addition of a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids to glycerol with constant stirring and cooling; it is a thick, pale yellow liquid, that is highly explosive on concussion or on exposure to sudden heat; it is used in medicine as a vasodilator, and as an explosive in the form of dynamite which is safe to handle.

WordNet
nitroglycerine

n. a heavy yellow poisonous oily explosive liquid obtained by nitrating glycerol; used in making explosives and medically as a vasodilator (trade names Nitrospan and Nitrostat) [syn: nitroglycerin, trinitroglycerin, glyceryl trinitrate, Nitrospan, Nitrostat]

Usage examples of "nitroglycerine".

Ethan had cracked the paraffin seal and wet the explosive mix of nitroglycerine and guncotton himself.

One of your principal ingredients in nitroglycerine, which every anarchist and revo knows can be mixed with paraffin, guncotton, a few other items to make plastique.

He opened the center drawer of a desk in what was to have been his HQ, a cleared secure building, and five pounds of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose blew him open and spread him all over the room, along with a colonel and his sergeant major.

He found that smokeless power is produced by colloiding nitrocellulose with special solvents followed by a drying process and that the nitroglycerine bonded with the nitrocellulose and would not separate in storage.

Two dollars would buy 1000 bennies, and for three bucks could get all the nitroglycerine tablets a heart patient could consume in a lifetime.

Jars of picric acid, nitric acid, carboys of other chemicals, packages labelled gunpowder, gun cotton and nitroglycerine, as well as carefully stoppered bottles of prussic acid, and the cyanides, arsenic and other poisons made the place bear the look of a veritable devil's workshop.

I can't even see a mechanical cigar lighter without thinking of filling one with nitroglycerine for somebody you don't like.