1 [U,C] a dry mass of very small fine pieces or grains:
chilli powder * lumps of chalk crushed to (a) fine white powder * The snow was like powder. * A wide range of cleaning fluids and powders is available. * The mustard is sold in powder form. * powder skiing (= on fine dry snow)
seealsoBAKINGPOWDER, CURRYPOWDER, SOAPPOWDER, TALCUMPOWDER, WASHINGPOWDER
2 [U] a very fine, soft, dry substance that you can put on your face to make it look smooth and dry:
I only use lipstick and a little powder.
3 [U] = GUNPOWDER
IDIOMS
keep your powder dry (old-fashioned) to remain ready for a possible emergency
take a powder (AmE, informal) to leave suddenly; to run away
verb [VN] to put powder on sth:
She powdered her face and put on her lipstick.
IDIOMS
powder your nose (old-fashioned) a polite way of referring to the fact that a woman is going to the toilet/bathroom:
I'm just going to powder my nose.
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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.
This entry for powder is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is powder a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, powder is tagged as noun.
Does powder appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — powder 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.
