saltpetre

/ ˌsɔːltˈpiːtə /

noun

1. another name for potassium nitrate
2. short for Chile saltpetre

Word History and Origins

Origin of saltpetre¹

C16: from Old French salpetre, from Latin sal petrae salt of rock

Example Sentences

Instead, they said warehouses containing the mineral fertiliser saltpetre had exploded - a claim ridiculed by Ukrainian officials.

From BBC

To keep it from melting, the ice was treated with potassium nitrate, otherwise known as saltpetre.

From Salon

It’s all about nitrates and nitrites, which have traditionally been used to keep meat pink and kill botulism: saltpetre, which you use in the salt beef, is potassium nitrate.

From The Guardian

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

The struggle has its origin in the exploitation of nitrates, used for fertiliser and to make saltpetre for the manufacture of gunpowder, in the Bolivian littoral, whose sparse population was mainly Chilean.

From Economist