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An explosion or sudden report made by the instantaneous decomposition or combustion of unstable substances' as, the detonation of gun cotton.

A type of internal-combustion engine in which the air drawn in by the suction stroke is so highly compressed that the heat generated ignites the fuel (usually crude oil), the fuel being automatically sprayed into the cylinder under pressure. The Diesel engine has a very high thermal efficiency.

The evolution of light and heat in the combustion of bodies; combustion; state of ignition.

cing a striking display of light, or a figure or figures in plain or colored fire, by the combustion of materials that burn in some peculiar manner, as gunpowder, sulphur, metallic filings, and various salts. The most common feature of fireworks is a paper or pasteboard tube filled with the combustible material. A numb…

To burn with a flame or blaze; to burn as gas emitted from bodies in combustion; to blaze. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again. Shak.

A four-stroke cycle, as the Otto cycle, for an internal- combustion engine. -- Four"-cy`cle, a.

To smoke; to throw off fumes, as in combustion or chemical action; to rise up, as vapor. Where the golden altar fumed. Milton. Silenus lay, Whose constant cups lay fuming to his brain. Roscommon.

An inclosed place in which heat is produced by the combustion of fuel, as for reducing ores or melting metals, for warming a house, for baking pottery, etc.; as, an iron furnace; a hot-air furnace; a glass furnace; a boiler furnace, etc.

A kind of internal-combustion engine (which see) using fixed gas; also, broadly, any internal-combustion engine.

The light yielded by the combustion of illuminating gas.

A kind of internal-combustion engine; -- in British countries called usually petrol engine.

rface (Steam Boilers), the aggregate surface exposed to fire or to the heated products of combustion, esp. of all the plates or sheets that are exposed to water on their opposite surfaces; -- called also fire surface.

-producing vessel, instrument or apparatus; especially, a vessel with a wick used for the combustion of oil or other inflammable liquid, for the purpose of producing artificial light.

change gear for an automobile; a cam shaft operated by a two-to-one gear in an internal- combustion engine. It is generally a shaft moving more or less independently of the other parts of a machine, as, in some marine engines, a shaft, driven by a small auxiliary engine, for independently operating the valves of the m…

In an internal-combustion engine with two or more cylinders, an induction coil and vibrator placed in the circuit between the battery or magneto and the coils for the different cylinders, which are used without vibrators of their own.

A vertical water space in a fire box or combustion chamber.

A four-stroke cycle for internal-combustion engines consisting of the following operations: First stroke, suction into cylinder of explosive charge, as of gas and air; second stroke, compression, ignition, and explosion of this charge; third stroke (the working stroke), expansion of the gases; fourth stroke, expulsion…

Ignition in an internal-combustion engine while the inlet valve is open or before compression is completed.

Chemical properties, or those which are conditioned by affinity and composition; thus, combustion, explosion, and certain solutions are reactions occasioned by chemical properties. Chemical properties are identical when there is identity of composition and structure, and change according as the composition changes. 3.…

A kind of empyreumatic oil produced by the combustion of textures of hemp, linen, or cotton in a copper vessel, -- formerly used as a remedial agent. Dunglison.