dynamite
Americannoun
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a high explosive, originally consisting of nitroglycerin mixed with an absorbent substance, now with ammonium nitrate usually replacing the nitroglycerin.
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any person or thing having a spectacular effect.
verb (used with object)
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to blow up, shatter, or destroy with dynamite.
Saboteurs dynamited the dam.
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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
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dynamitesimple
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dynamitessimple
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have dynamitedperfect
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has dynamitedperfect
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am dynamitingprogressive
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are dynamitingprogressive
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is dynamitingprogressive
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have been dynamitingperfect progressive
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has been dynamitingperfect progressive
Past
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dynamitedsimple
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had dynamitedperfect
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was dynamitingprogressive
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were dynamitingprogressive
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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:
How many other sculptors have made regular use of dynamite?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 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
As further reminder, Deutsche Grammophon has just released the orchestra’s dynamite live recording of Prokofiev’s complete ballet score from the Disney premiere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026
Norton added: "Bringing him and Bad Bunny together to tell the true story of Puerto Rico's roots is going to be like a flame finding the stick of dynamite that's been waiting for it."
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 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
The ordinary dynamites used in mining are about four times as powerful as gunpowder.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 1 "Bisharin" to "Bohea" by Various
With gelatine dynamites a firm tamping may be used, but with ordinary dynamite loose sand is better.
From Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise by Sanford, P. Gerald (Percy Gerald)
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
A place where dead sailors had been buried, the island was dynamited and removed in the early 20th century to widen the harbor and make it more usable for shipping traffic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2024
But Benjamin Chim had his fields dynamited and turned into a quarry for materials for the railroad.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2023
But on Jan. 8, 1931, the inflammable pile was dynamited, making room for King County Hospital, now Harborview Medical Center.
From Seattle Times ● May 11, 2023
On May 11, 1906, the wrecking company dynamited the wheel, for scrap.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
In his summation to jurors, prosecutor Joseph Ford essentially blamed Darrow for the dynamiting of The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 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
Celtic have struggled against teams who sit in and hoover up space while dynamiting those who try to play more freely.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2022
They achieved this by dynamiting a 28-mile-long canal connecting the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River, which flows toward the Mississippi.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 10, 2021
The work was backbreaking: digging out boulders, chopping down trees, dynamiting tunnels, and hammering in railroad ties.
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
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.
