explode

present singular third person explodes · participle present exploding · participle past exploded · past exploded · first person past singular exploded · archaic present second person singular explodest · past second person singular exploded · archaic past second person singular explodedst · present singular third person explodes · archaic present singular third person explodeth · past singular third person exploded · past plural exploded · past subjunctive exploded · participle present exploding · participle past exploded · alternative nonstandard asplode

1. intransitiveTo fly apart with sudden violent force; to blow up, to burst, to detonate, to go off.

   The bomb explodes.

   1 more example

   But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert's desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high-explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from the aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to bits of debris, and the line to a huge crater.

   2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43

2. transitiveTo destroy with an explosion.

   The assassin exploded the car by means of a car bomb.

   Synonyms: blow up, blow, blast, burst

3. figurativelyintransitiveTo make a violent or emotional outburst; to suddenly give expression to powerful and often negative or unpleasant emotion, especially anger.

   She exploded when I criticised her hat.

   2 more examples

   Dobbin […] fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

   “Nonsense!” Jack exploded at me. “Why Miss Bertram here knocked that theory into a cocked hat coming over on the train.”

   1902, Albert R. Carman, “My Bridal Trip” (short story), in The Canadian Magazine, Volume 20, Number 1 (November 1902), page 15

   Synonyms: blow up

4. figurativelyintransitiveTo increase suddenly.

   When pigeons can come to a spot day in and day out for a guaranteed meal, their populations explode.

   2016, Nathanael Johnson, Unseen City, →ISBN, page 19

   1 more example

   Despite these products typically costing more, the market for organic food has exploded over the last couple of decades.

   2025 April 1, Greg Rosalsky, “Crumbling trust in American institutions: A MAHA activist takes on Girl Scout cookies”, in NPR

   Synonyms: blow up

5. mathematicsTo increase arbitrarily or boundlessly.

   The function f(x) = 1/x explodes around x = 0.

6. transitiveTo destroy violently or abruptly.

   They sought to explode the myth.

7. transitiveTo create an exploded view of.

   Explode the assembly drawing so that all the fasteners are visible.

8. archaictransitiveTo disprove or debunk.

   Astrology is required by many famous physicians […] doubted of, and exploded by others.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, , section 2

   2 more examples

   [W]henever the person who is possessed of [natural goodness] doth what is right, no ravished or friendly spectator is so eager or so loud in his applause: on the contrary, when he doth wrong, no critic is so apt to hiss and explode him.

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

   Another instance of the like nature is, that the old opinion, that Turks and infidels are perpetually to be considered as alien enemies, has been long exploded.

   1783, Richard Wooddeson, Lectures on the Law of England, page 229

9. figurativelyintransitiveTo emerge suddenly.

   to explode into the mainstream; to explode onto the scene

   2 more examples

   In recent years, words and ideas used to describe discrimination against members of historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups have seemingly exploded into the lexicon: systemic inequality, privilege, white supremacy, the patriarchy, etc.

   2022 February 26, David Rozado, Musa al-Gharbi, Jamin Halberstadt, “Use of ‘sexist’ and ‘racist’ in the New York Times increased over 400% since 2012. Why?”, in The Guardian

   A.I. text-to-image generators such as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and DALL-E exploded onto the scene this year and in mere months have become widely used to create all sorts of images, ranging from digital art pieces to character designs.

   2022 December 31, Sarah Andersen, “The Alt-Right Manipulated My Comic. Then A.I. Claimed It.”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms: burst

10. slangvulgarTo ejaculate.
11. computingTo break (a delimited string of text) into several smaller strings by removing the separators.

    The third check uses the exploded data stored in the array $parts and the function checkdate() to test if the date is a valid calendar date.

    2004, Hugh E. Williams, David Lane, Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL

    Synonyms: split, unstring

12. transitivecomputingTo decompress (data) that was previously imploded.

    I'm looking for some code that will implode data using the PKZIP method.. and explode it. PKWare sells an object that you can link with that does the job, and we have licensed this, but we are now writing 32 bit code for MS-DOS and the PKWare stuff won't work […]

    1992, Steve Tibbett, “PKZIP Implode compression/decompression.”, in comp.compression (Usenet)

    Synonyms: unstring

13. transitiveTo open all doors and hatches on an automobile.
14. intransitiveboard gamingOf a die, to produce the highest face result and consequently reroll.