deflagration
(dɛfləˈgreɪʃən)
[ad. L. dēflagrātiōn-em, n. of action from dēflagrāre to deflagrate. Cf. mod.F. déflagration.]
† 1. The rapid burning away of anything in a destructive fire; consumption by a blazing fire. Obs.
| 1607 J. King Serm. 30 A type of the deflagration of Sodome and Gomorre. a 1633 S. Lennard tr. Charron's Wisd. iii. iv. viii. §1 (1670) 390 Witness that great deflagration..in Constantinople. 1659 Pearson Creed (1839) 88 By supposing innumerable deluges and deflagrations. 1788 Potter Sophocles Pref. to Œdipus (R.), Till the mountain..discharges its torrent fires, which..carry with them deflagration, ruin, and horror. 1811 Pinkerton Petral. II. 547 In Fifeshire..a coal-mine has continued in a state of deflagration, at least since the time of Buchanan, 1560. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Lect. Metaph. (1877) II. xxxix. 381 We see..the fall of a spark on gunpowder, for example, followed by the deflagration of the gunpowder. |
† b. Of a volcano: A blazing out into flame.
| 1691 Ray Creation ii. v. (1732) 259 The great Deflagrations or Eruptions of Vulcanos. |
2. Physics. The action of deflagrating; rapid, sharp combustion with sudden evolution of flame; esp. the sudden combustion of a substance for the purpose of producing some change in its composition by the joint action of heat and oxygen (cf. quot. 1831); also, the sudden combustion and oxidation of a metal by the electric spark.
| 1666 Boyle Orig. Formes & Qual., Nor were all its inflammable parts consum'd at one deflagration. 1674 Phil. Trans. IX. 102 The deflagration of Niter. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Deflagration..In Chymistry, the inkindling and burning off in a Crucible a Mixture of a Salt or of some Mineral Body with a Sulphureous one, in order to purify the Salt, or to make a Regulus of the Mineral; as in the preparing of Sal Prunellæ and Regulus of Antimony. 1754 Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 679 A violent deflagration arose, and the platina was almost instantly dissolved. 1816 J. Smith Panorama Sc. & Art II. 282 Galvanic batteries..the larger the plates, the greater is their power of deflagration. 1831 T. P. Jones Convers. Chem. xxii. 228 The metals are sometimes oxidized by what is called deflagration. That is, by mixing them with nitre, and projecting the mixture into a red hot crucible. |