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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bursting charge

Burst \Burst\ (b[^u]rst), v. t.

  1. To break or rend by violence, as by an overcharge or by strain or pressure, esp. from within; to force open suddenly; as, to burst a cannon; to burst a blood vessel; to burst open the doors.

    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.
    --Shak.

  2. To break. [Obs.]

    You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
    --Shak.

    He burst his lance against the sand below.
    --Fairfax (Tasso).

  3. To produce as an effect of bursting; as, to burst a hole through the wall.

    Bursting charge. See under Charge.

Bursting charge

Charge \Charge\, n. [F. charge, fr. charger to load. See Charge, v. t., and cf. Cargo, Caricature.]

  1. A load or burder laid upon a person or thing.

  2. A person or thing commited or intrusted to the care, custody, or management of another; a trust.

    Note: The people of a parish or church are called the charge of the clergyman who is set over them.

  3. Custody or care of any person, thing, or place; office; responsibility; oversight; obigation; duty.

    'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand.
    --Shak.

  4. Heed; care; anxiety; trouble. [Obs.]
    --Chaucer.

  5. Harm. [Obs.]
    --Chaucer.

  6. An order; a mandate or command; an injunction.

    The king gave cherge concerning Absalom.
    --2. Sam. xviii. 5.

  7. An address (esp. an earnest or impressive address) containing instruction or exhortation; as, the charge of a judge to a jury; the charge of a bishop to his clergy.

  8. An accusation of a wrong of offense; allegation; indictment; specification of something alleged.

    The charge of confounding very different classes of phenomena.
    --Whewell.

  9. Whatever constitutes a burden on property, as rents, taxes, lines, etc.; costs; expense incurred; -- usually in the plural.

  10. The price demanded for a thing or service.

  11. An entry or a account of that which is due from one party to another; that which is debited in a business transaction; as, a charge in an account book.

  12. That quantity, as of ammunition, electricity, ore, fuel, etc., which any apparatus, as a gun, battery, furnace, machine, etc., is intended to receive and fitted to hold, or which is actually in it at one time

  13. The act of rushing upon, or towards, an enemy; a sudden onset or attack, as of troops, esp. cavalry; hence, the signal for attack; as, to sound the charge.

    Never, in any other war afore, gave the Romans a hotter charge upon the enemies.
    --Holland.

    The charge of the light brigade.
    --Tennyson.

  14. A position (of a weapon) fitted for attack; as, to bring a weapon to the charge.

  15. (Far.) A sort of plaster or ointment.

  16. (Her.) A bearing. See Bearing, n., 8.

  17. [Cf. Charre.] Thirty-six pigs of lead, each pig weighing about seventy pounds; -- called also charre.

  18. Weight; import; value. Many suchlike ``as's'' of great charge. --Shak. Back charge. See under Back, a. Bursting charge.

    1. (Mil.) The charge which bursts a shell, etc.

    2. (Mining) A small quantity of fine powder to secure the ignition of a charge of coarse powder in blasting.

      Charge and discharge (Equity Practice), the old mode or form of taking an account before a master in chancery.

      Charge sheet, the paper on which are entered at a police station all arrests and accusations.

      To sound the charge, to give the signal for an attack.

      Syn: Care; custody; trust; management; office; expense; cost; price; assault; attack; onset; injunction; command; order; mandate; instruction; accusation; indictment.

WordNet
bursting charge

n. a quantity of explosive to be set off at one time; "this cartridge has a powder charge of 50 grains" [syn: charge, burster, explosive charge]

Usage examples of "bursting charge".

The shells had a ten-kilogram bursting charge, and their targetthe land-facing guns of the forthad no overhead protection.

The shells had a ten-kilogram bursting charge, and their target—.

The bursting charge was not large, only ten kilos of powder, but it was enough to spray a huge fan of burning oil and naphtha across the hillside into the faces of the Colonist second wave.

It would explode on contact, or when a perforated brass tube of powder burned past an outlet into the body of the bursting charge.

The bursting charge scattered fire like the Christian Hell, and it burned inextinguishably, some wonderful art making it impossible to put out with water.

It was canister, a thin-walled head full of lead balls with a small bursting charge at the rear.

These seventy-five hundred balls traveled on with all the velocity of the original shell, plus a small additional bit of energy from their bursting charge.

He'd heard it was because their bursting charge was heavier than similar sized artillery or something.

The shells had a ten-kilogram bursting charge, and their target the land-facing guns of the fort had no overhead protection.

Thiddo winced slightly: the casings of the shells were loaded with hundreds of lead balls packed around a bursting charge.

The shells had a ten-kilogram bursting charge, and their target -- the land-facing guns of the fort -- had no overhead protection.

That and the sudden flexing as ceramic shed heat into the water ripped the iron frames of the firebrick ovens apart like the bursting charge of a howitzer shell, sending them into the backs of the screaming black gang as they ran for the ladders.