- a variation of saltpeter.
saltpetre
Britishnoun
-
another name for potassium nitrate
-
short for Chile saltpetre
Etymology
Origin of saltpetre
C16: from Old French salpetre, from Latin sal petrae salt of rock
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.
Instead, they said warehouses containing the mineral fertiliser saltpetre had exploded - a claim ridiculed by Ukrainian officials.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2022
To keep it from melting, the ice was treated with potassium nitrate, otherwise known as saltpetre.
From Salon ● Dec. 31, 2020
In earlier centuries, bacon-makers who used saltpetre did not understand that it converts to nitrite as the meat cures.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 1, 2018
When Germany was denied access to Chile’s saltpetre during the First World War, the Haber–Bosch process gave it — and the world — an alternative, which it grasped with both hands.
From Nature ● Sep. 4, 2013
My sister has a notion that a young man and a young woman ought no more to be in propinquity than saltpetre and charcoal.
From Barrington Volume I (of II) by Charles James Lever
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.
