detonate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dētonātus, the past participle of dētonō (“to thunder down or forth”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} modelled in its modern sense on French détoner, recorded in 1680.^[2][8] Barnhart, Hoad, Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford also see it, wholly or in part, as a back-formation from detonation,^{[5][9][3][10]} recorded from 1677 and taken from French détonation.^[2][3] The Latin verb is formed from dē- (“down”) and tonō (“to thunder”),^{[2][11][4][8]} from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenə- (“to thunder”),^[11] the same Indo-European base as thunder.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a substance, to explode with a sudden loud report: 1729, in G. Shelvocke's translation of K. Siemienowicz.^[2] Dictionary.com gives 1720–30.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb was about thunder and never meant "to cause to explode": that meaning comes from its French descendant.^[8] In English the word was first intransitive, a term for chemical substances that decomposed or combined with a sudden bang.^[2][3] The transitive use, "to set off", appears in 1801, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[2][3] In the 19th century it was also applied to people giving vent to sudden anger (1836), and rarely to a thundering noise (1853), which is close to the Latin sense.^[2] In 1824 P. Hawker used it for converting a flint gun into a "detonator", a use that did not last.^[2] From 1928 it was used of an internal combustion engine making a clinking noise.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now also records a figurative "to spark", of something set off in a burst of activity.^[4]

Timeline

• 1729 – intransitive, to explode with a sudden loud report.^[2][4][5][3]
• 1801 – transitive, to cause to explode.^[2][3]
• 1824 – to convert a flint gun into a detonator (obsolete).^[2]
• 1836 – figuratively, to burst out in anger.^[2]
• 1853 – to make a thundering noise (rare).^[2]
• 1928 – of an engine, to make a clinking or hammering noise.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To explode, or to cause a bomb, mine or the like to explode: The engineers detonated the charge at dawn.^[12][11][13]
2. To explode almost instantly, as distinguished from deflagrating.^[4][2]
3. To set off a burst of activity; to spark: The memo detonated a long dispute.^[4]
4. To give vent suddenly to anger or another violent feeling.^[2]
5. Of an internal combustion engine, to make a clinking or hammering noise.^[2]

Word family

• detonatable
• detonative
• detonability
• detonation
• detonator
• nondetonating
• undetonated

Related words

• stentorian
• Thor
• thunder
• Thursday

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press