The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deflagration \Def`la*gra"tion\, n. [L. deflagratio: cf. F. d['e]flagration.]
A burning up; conflagration. ``Innumerable deluges and deflagrations.''
--Bp. Pearson.(Chem.) The act or process of deflagrating.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. The act of deflagrating; an intense fire; a conflagration or explosion. Specifically, combustion that spreads subsonically via thermal conduction.
WordNet
n. combustion that propagates through a gas or along the surface of an explosive at a rapid rate driven by the transfer of heat
Wikipedia
Deflagration (Lat: de + flagrare, "to burn down") is a term describing subsonic combustion propagating through heat transfer; hot burning material heats the next layer of cold material and ignites it. Most " fire" found in daily life, from flames to explosions, is deflagration. Deflagration is different from detonation, which propagates supersonically through shock waves. This means that when a substance deflagrates, it burns extremely quickly instead of detonating. Black powder is an example of a substance that deflagrates; when it is ignited, black powder burns extremely quickly (so fast in fact that the burn is sometimes mistaken for a detonation).
Usage examples of "deflagration".
And we marvelled bitterly that man could adventure his frail organism through the deflagrations of a chemistry hardly disciplined as yet, which attains and surpasses the brutality of the blind forces of Nature.
He accordingly resolved to manufacture and employ pyroxyle, although it has some inconveniences, that is to say, a great inequality of effect, an excessive inflammability, since it takes fire at one hundred and seventy degrees instead of two hundred and forty, and lastly, an instantaneous deflagration which might damage the firearms.