Explosion

How to spell explosion

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce explosion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does explosion mean?

1. nounA sudden and violent release of energy, usually with a loud noise and destructive force.
2. nounA sudden, large or rapid increase in number, amount, or activity.

Explosion in a sentence

• The gas leak caused an explosion that destroyed the kitchen.

• The city saw an explosion in house prices over a single year.

• Investigators traced the explosion to a faulty pressure valve.

• The new app triggered an explosion of online traffic.

Where does explosion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb explodere, which literally meant 'to drive off by clapping', built from ex- meaning 'out' and plaudere meaning 'to clap or applaud'. In Roman theatres an unpopular performer could be hissed and clapped off the stage, so the original sense was one of noisy rejection rather than bursting. The past participle explosus gave the late Latin and then the noun form, and by the 1600s English had borrowed it with a fresh scientific sense of a sudden, violent outward release. The familiar relative 'applaud' shares the very same plaudere root, which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the 's' of plosus rather than a 'z'. The modern meaning of a loud bursting of energy only settled firmly in the eighteenth century as the study of gases and gunpowder advanced.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• plos (from plaudere, to clap or drive away)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)