1 easily able or likely to explode:
an explosive device (= a bomb) * an explosive mixture of chemicals * Hydrogen is highly explosive.
2 likely to cause violence or strong feelings of anger or hatred:
a potentially explosive situation * one of the most explosive issues of our time
3 often having sudden violent or angry feelings:
an explosive temper
4 increasing suddenly and rapidly:
the explosive growth of the export market
5 (of a sound) sudden and loud:
There was an explosive crash and then everything fell silent.
explosively adverb:
The company has grown explosively over the last two years.
noun [C,U] a substance that is able or likely to cause an explosion:
nuclear / plastic explosives * The bomb was packed with several pounds of high explosive.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of explosive come from?
This entry for explosive is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is explosive a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, explosive is tagged as adjective.
Does explosive appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — explosive appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
