saltpetre
Britishnoun
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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.
To keep it from melting, the ice was treated with potassium nitrate, otherwise known as saltpetre.
From Salon • Dec. 31, 2020
As Jane Grigson explains in Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, saltpetre was traditionally used when brining hams to give them “an attractive rosy appearance when otherwise it would be a murky greyish brown”.
From The Guardian • Mar. 1, 2018
But a decade later, the guano was already running out, and so attention shifted to another source of nitrogen close at hand - the saltpetre flats of the Atacama desert.
From BBC • Jun. 6, 2014
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
To add to his scanty resources, he made lye, nitre and saltpetre on shares and his process and progress he records in detail.
From Legends of Loudoun An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck by Williams, Harrison
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.
