dynamite
Americannoun
-
a high explosive, originally consisting of nitroglycerin mixed with an absorbent substance, now with ammonium nitrate usually replacing the nitroglycerin.
-
any person or thing having a spectacular effect.
verb (used with object)
-
dynamites,
present (3rd person singular)
-
dynamited,
past participle, past
-
dynamiting
present participle
-
to blow up, shatter, or destroy with dynamite.
Saboteurs dynamited the dam.
-
to mine or charge with dynamite.
adjective
noun
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an explosive consisting of nitroglycerine or ammonium nitrate mixed with kieselguhr, sawdust, or wood pulp
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informal a spectacular or potentially dangerous person or thing
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
dynamitesimple
-
dynamitessimple
-
have dynamitedperfect
-
has dynamitedperfect
-
am dynamitingprogressive
-
are dynamitingprogressive
-
is dynamitingprogressive
-
have been dynamitingperfect progressive
-
has been dynamitingperfect progressive
Past
-
dynamitedsimple
-
had dynamitedperfect
-
was dynamitingprogressive
-
were dynamitingprogressive
-
had been dynamitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dynamite
From Swedish dynamit, introduced by Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( def. ), its inventor in 1867; see dynam-, -ite 1
Explanation
Dynamite is a material that explodes when it's detonated. Dynamite has long been used in mining, for blasting open layers of rock. Dynamite is not the kind of thing you buy at the corner hardware store. Dynamite was invented in 1867 by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor, chemist, and engineer. Builders and miners were happy about the new explosive, since dynamite was stronger and safer than those that came before it. Nobel named his invention dynamit, a Swedish version of the Greek dynamis, "power." The earliest figurative meaning was "dangerous," but in the 1960s it came to also mean "excellent" or "impressive."
Vocabulary lists containing dynamite
Civil Engineering
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Engineering - Middle School
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for September 3–September 9, 2022
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Among their backers was a third Nobel brother, Alfred, already well on his way to immense wealth after patenting dynamite in 1867.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
Soldiers cordoned off the area before using dynamite to blast the first ruined building apart -- a 12-story residential tower that had partially collapsed and was slanting toward the street.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
Denford’s steadily growing “nobody cares” audience regularly tosses sticks of dynamite into that vortex in the name of protecting our sanity.
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2026
We’ve all marveled at Shohei Ohtani’s Superman quick change, how he’ll go from dynamite pitcher to fearsome hitter in a few bats of an eye.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2026
He passes me the piece of dynamite formerly known as his phone.
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
Corinne Bailey Rae dynamites her own musical past and embraces a larger historical one on her new album, “Black Rainbows.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2023
The girl in the case is also a bandit—except that she wrecks trains of thought and dynamites dams along the canons of true love instead of bothering with the Union Pacific and the Shoshone.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hartmann explains it this way: "The seizure just kind of dynamites the depression out of my brain somehow."
From Time Magazine Archive
They are mostly distinguished by special trade names, and are mainly of two classes—those containing ammonium nitrate and nitrobenzene or nitronaphthalene, and those containing nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, which are essentially weak dynamites.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 5 "Clervaux" to "Cockade" by Various
Kieselguhr dynamites are being largely given up in favour of gelatine explosives.
From Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise by P. Gerald (Percy Gerald) Sanford
The French Revolution then dynamited Europe’s old order and dynamized society as a collective organism, evolving in a “quasi-biological and determinate way.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
But Benjamin Chim had his fields dynamited and turned into a quarry for materials for the railroad.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2023
The Germans also dynamited the dam years later as they retreated after repairing the Soviet damage.
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023
Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine wasn’t a frontal assault that dynamited precedent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2021
He cut more hay, dug more ditches, dynamited more stumps, and spread more hot, black asphalt on Highway 101.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
In his summation to jurors, prosecutor Joseph Ford essentially blamed Darrow for the dynamiting of The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2024
After delivering consistency and displaying mental strength under their new manager, Clement’s team suddenly went rogue on him and those results might be the ones that end up dynamiting their league season.
From BBC ● May 10, 2024
However, Macron’s 2017 dynamiting of a post-war political landscape dominated by the two mainstream parties on the centre-right and centre-left created a void for populists to fill, analysts say.
From Reuters ● Apr. 6, 2022
A piece by Sun cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher, which showed a caricature of Schmoke dynamiting the Block only for little Blocks to spring up all over the city, made a big impression.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 9, 2022
In the mid-1990s, he points out, the city of Baltimore embarked on a highly publicized policy of dynamiting the old i96os-style public housing high-rises in East and West Baltimore.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
