nitroglycerin

[ nahy-truh-glis-er-in ]

noun

, Chemistry, Pharmacology.

1. a colorless, thick, oily, flammable, highly explosive, slightly water-soluble liquid, C 3 H 5 N 3 O 9 , prepared from glycerol with nitric and sulfuric acids: used chiefly as a constituent of dynamite and other explosives, in rocket propellants, and in medicine as a vasodilator in the treatment of angina pectoris.

nitroglycerin

/ nī′trō-glĭs′ər-ĭn /

1. A thick, pale-yellow, explosive liquid formed by treating glycerin with nitric and sulfuric acids. It is used to make dynamite and in medicine to dilate blood vessels. Chemical formula: C 3 H 5 N 3 O 9 .

Word History and Origins

Origin of nitroglycerin¹

First recorded in 1855–60; nitro- + glycerin

Example Sentences

As if those choices were comparably distasteful when, in fact, one is vanilla and the other is nitroglycerin.

From Los Angeles Times

Doctors had been prescribing nitroglycerin for angina and other heart ailments for over a century — including, coincidentally, to Alfred Nobel, who founded the Nobel Prizes.

From Seattle Times

Doctors had been prescribing nitroglycerin for angina and other heart ailments for over a century — including, coincidentally, to Alfred Nobel, who founded the Nobel Prizes.

From New York Times

After huge back-to-back hits with “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” Friedkin adapted the same French novel that Henri-Georges Clouzot had turned into “The Wages of Fear,” a suspense classic about desperate workers driving truckloads of nitroglycerin through a mountain pass.

From New York Times

Roy Scheider leads an international cast as one of four outlaws who accept $10,000 and legal citizenship for the job of driving nitroglycerin on hazardous South American roads to an oil well 200 miles away.

From New York Times

Related Words

• ammunition
• bomb
• booby trap
• detonator
• dynamite
• gunpowder
• mine
• missile
• munition
• powder