implosion
Americannoun
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the act of imploding; a bursting inward (opposed to explosion).
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Phonetics.
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the occlusive phase of stop consonants.
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(of a stop consonant) the nasal release heard in the common pronunciation of eaten, sudden, or mitten, in which the vowel of the final syllable is greatly reduced.
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the ingressive release of a suction stop.
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noun
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the act or process of imploding
the implosion of a light bulb
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phonetics the suction or inhalation of breath employed in the pronunciation of an ingressive consonant
Etymology
Origin of implosion
First recorded in 1875–80; im- 1 + (ex)plosion
Explanation
An implosion is the abrupt, violent collapse of something large. When an old building needs to be removed to make way for new structures, implosion is often used as a controlled way to destroy it. A real scientific implosion happens when the pressure inside and outside of an object vary so much that the object is crushed, or collapses in on itself. This can happen, for example, to a submarine under the water or to a collapsing star in the galaxy. The implosion of a building involves careful, small explosions that make the middle fall as the sides collapse inwardly.
Vocabulary lists containing implosion
The Graveyard Book
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Darius the Great Is Not Okay
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Grounded
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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.
But ultimately Klement said he would favor two basic positions during any AI implosion: “cash and fetal.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
Yet Newcastle's implosion was remarkable as a young team were bullied and outfought.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
Irregularities in the implosion can interfere with the compression process and weaken the resulting fusion reaction.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
It’s a brutal lesson, too, in the risks of leverage, or investment bets fueled by borrowing, several years after Archegos Capital’s implosion, report Gregory Zuckerman, Juliet Chung and Peter Rudegeair.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
The results helped convince Oppenheimer that a plutonium implosion bomb might work.
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
