noun
definition
An explosive mixture of saltpetre (potassium nitrate), charcoal and sulphur; formerly used in gunnery but now mostly used in fireworks.
definition
Short for gunpowder tea.
Examples of gunpowder in a Sentence
Some houses were at once blown up by gunpowder, and thus the fire was finally mastered.
Gunpowder had not yet been invented.
Gunpowder is manufactured near Erith and Faversham and elsewhere.
Some writers aver that the piles were charged with gunpowder.
Its principal manufactures are gunpowder, carpets, brick, cotton press machinery, and coffin hardware.
In 1609 he published Tortura Torti, a learned work which grew out of the Gunpowder Plot controversy and was written in answer to Bellarmine's Matthaeus Tortus, which attacked James I.'s book on the oath of allegiance.
He comes before us as a belated epicurean, whose airy trifles cannot be warbled in an atmosphere surcharged with tempests and gunpowder.
In 1605 took place in England the Gunpowder Plot, in which Henry Garnet, the superior of the Society in England, was implicated.
Synods were occasionally held in this church, and parliaments also, before the Commons' Hall was destroyed in 1566 by an accidental explosion of gunpowder.
The reality of it was proved by a ship being found laden with gunpowder in the Liverpool docks, and another with s000 and 2000 pike-heads in Dublin.
Robins also made a number of important experiments on the resistance of the air to the motion of projectiles, and on the force of gunpowder, with computation of the velocities thereby communicated to projectiles.
Of these, Forty Hall, in splendidly timbered grounds, is from the designs of Inigo Jones; and a former mansion occupying the site of White Webbs House was suspected as the scene of the hatching of Gunpowder Plot.
Gunpowder, the compass, the Arabic numerals and paper, are nowhere spoken of as discoveries, and yet they must have wrought a total change in war, in navigation, in science, and in education.
Yule (Book of Marco Polo) " Respecting the mariner's compass and gunpowder, I shall say nothing, as no one now, I believe, imagines Marco to have had anything to do with their introduction."
King James I., who had coquetted twenty years previously with Clement VIII., and then had avenged the Gunpowder Plot (1605) by the most stringent regulation of his Roman Catholic subjects, was now dazzled by the project of the Spanish marriage.
The salt is blasted out with gunpowder.
Appointed regisseur des poudres in 1 775, he not only abolished the vexatious search for saltpetre in the cellars of private houses, but increased the production of the salt and improved the manufacture of gunpowder.
Aspen wood makes but indifferent fuel, but charcoal prepared from it is light and friable, and has been employed in gunpowder manufacture.
The light charcoal afforded by the hazel serves well for crayons, and is valued by gunpowder manufacturers.
They were at first forbidden to engage in commerce or agriculture, to carry firearms, to possess or manufacture gunpowder.
The revenue of the republic is derived mainly from customs duties, liquor, tobacco and slaughter taxes, railways and steamers, the postal and telegraph services, and the gunpowder monopoly.
It is said that during this siege gunpowder was first used by the Moors in the wars of Europe.
These are, briefly speaking, the decay of those great fabrics, church and empire, which ruled the middle ages both as ideas and as realities; the development of nationalities and languages; the enfeeblement of the feudal system throughout Europe; the invention and application of paper, the mariner's compass, gunpowder, and printing; the exploration of continents beyond the ocean; and the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.
The sole industry of the town at present is the manufacture of gunpowder.
The Gunpowder Plot had aroused in the Commons warmer feelings towards the king; they passed severe laws against recusants, and granted a triple subsidy.
In 1605 he published his Remains concerning Britain, a book of collections from the Britannia, which quickly passed through seven editions; and he wrote an official account of the trial of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators as Actio in Henricum Garnetum, Societatis Jesuiticae in Anglia superiorem et caeteros.
He sought to undo the worst consequences of the Methuen treaty by the creation of national industries, establishing a gunpowder factory and a sugar refinery in 1751, a silk industry in 1752, wool, paper and glass factories after 1759.
He also prepared potassium chlorate and attempted to use it in the manufacture of gunpowder as a substitute for saltpetre.
The wood of the horse-chestnut is soft, and serves only for the making of water-pipes, for turner's work and common carpentry, as a source of charcoal for gunpowder, and as fuel.
Close by is a lofty Gothic tower (1500), which belonged to the ancient church of St Mary, which was wrecked by an explosion of gunpowder in 1787.
His name immediately aroused suspicions, and accordingly it was ordered that a further search should be made by Thomas Knyvett, a Westminster magistrate who, coming with his men at night, discovered the gunpowder and arrested Fawkes on the threshold.
The steps taken by Salisbury after the discovery of the gunpowder do not show the possession of any information of the plot or of the persons who were its chief agents outside Fawkes's first statement, and his knowledge is seen to develop according to the successive disclosures and confessions of the latter.
They now began to feel themselves abandoned not only by man but by God; for an explosion of some of their gunpowder, on the morning of the 8th, by which Catesby and some others were scorched, struck terror into their hearts as a judgment from heaven.
So ended the strange and famous Gunpowder Plot.
The recent controversy concerning the nature and origin of the plot can be followed in What was the Gunpowder Plot ?
The bibliography of the contemporary controversy is given in the article on Henry Garnet in the Dictionary of National Biography and in The Gunpowder Plot by David Jardine (1857), the latter work still remaining the principal authority on the subject; add to these Gardiner's Hist.
A large number of letters and papers in the State Paper Office relating to the plot were collected in one volume in 1819, called the Gunpowder Plot Book; these are noted in their proper place in the printed calendars of State Papers, Domestic Series; see also articles on FAWKES, GUY; TRESHAM, FRANCIS; MONTEAGLE, WILLIAM PARKER, 4TH BARON; PERCY, THOMAS; CATESBY, ROBERT; GARNET, HENRY; DIGBY, SIR EVERARD.
A few hours later, on the morning of the loth, Kirk o' Field was blown up with gunpowder.
It is, however, in connexion with the Gunpowder Plot that he is best remembered.
About the same time he was consulted by Catesby, Tresham and Winter, all afterwards involved in the Gunpowder Plot, on the subject of the mission to be sent to Spain to induce Philip III.
Gardiner, What Gunpowder Plot was (1897), in reply to John Gerard, S.J., What was the Gunpowder Plot?
The original documents are preserved in the Gunpowder Plot Book at the Record Office.
In 1604 Thomas Winter, at the instance of Catesby, in whose mind the gunpowder plot had now taken definite shape, introduced himself to Fawkes in Flanders, and as "a confident gentleman," "best able for this business," brought him on to England as assistant in the conspiracy.
Owing to the fact of his being unknown in London, to his exceptional courage and coolness, and probably to his experience in the wars and at sieges, the actual accomplishment of the design was entrusted to Fawkes, and when the house adjoining the parliament house was hired in Percy's name, he took charge of it as Percy's servant, under the name of Johnson_ He acted as sentinel while the others worked at the mine in December 1604, probably directing their operations, and on the discovery of the adjoining cellar, situated immediately beneath the House of Lords, he arranged in it the barrels of gunpowder, which he covered over with firewood and coals and with iron bars to increase the force of the explosion.
He returned in August and brought fresh gunpowder into the cellars to replace any which might be spoilt by damp. A slow match was prepared which would give him a quarter of an hour in which to escape from the explosion.
At about ten o' clock Robert Keyes brought Fawkes from Percy a watch, that he might know how the anxious hours were passing, and very shortly afterwards he was arrested, and the gunpowder discovered, by Thomas Knyvett, a Westminster magistrate.
The official account (untrustworthy in details) is the True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings against the late most Barbarous Traitors (1606), reprinted by Bishop Barlow of Lincoln as The Gunpowder Treason (1679).
There is an important trade in agricultural products and live stock, as well as manufactures of woollen stuffs, leather, gunpowder, chemicals and porcelain.
Owing to its position on two important railways, Alcazar has a flourishing transit-trade in the wines of Estremadura and Andalusia; the soda and alkali of La Mancha are used in the manufacture of soap; and gunpowder, chocolate and inlaid daggers are also made here.
The gunpowder plot (1605) was the result, followed by a sharpef persecution than ever (see GUNPOWDER PLOT).