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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



27 words match “FIREWORK”

FIREWORK n. 2 definitions
r, 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 number of these tubes or cases are often combined so as to make, when kindled, a great variety of figures in fire, often variously colored. The skyroc…
BENGAL n.
Striped gingham, originally brought from Bengal; Bengal stripes. Bengal light, a firework containing niter, sulphur, and antimony, and producing a sustained and vivid colored light, used in making signals and in pyrotechnics; -- called also blue light. -- Bengal stripes, a kind of cotton cloth woven with colored strip…
CATHERINE WHEEL n.
A revolving piece of fireworks resembling in form the window of the same name. [Written also Catharine wheel.]
CRACKER n.
A small firework, consisting of a little powder inclossed in a thick paper cylinder with a fuse, and exploding with a sharp noise; - - often called firecracker.
CRACKLE n.
The noise of slight and frequent cracks or reports; a crackling. The crackle of fireworks. Carlyle.
DRIFT n.
A tool used in driving down compactly the composition contained in a rocket, or like firework.
FIRE n.
ncy of air heated by a fire placed in the lower part. (b) A balloon sent up at night with fireworks which ignite at a regulated height. Simmonds. -- Fire bar, a grate bar. -- Fire basket, a portable grate; a cresset. Knight. -- Fire beetle. (Zoöl.) See in the Vocabulary. -- Fire blast, a disease of plants which cau…
FIZGIG n.
A firework, made of damp powder, which makes a fizzing or hissing noise when it explodes.
GERBE n.
A kind of ornamental firework. Farrow.
GIRANDOLE n.
A kind of revolving firework.
LIGHT n.
A firework made by filling a case with a substance which burns brilliantly with a white or colored flame; as, a Bengal light.
LYCOPODIUM n.
order Lycopodiaceæ. It is highly inflammable, and is sometimes used in the manufacture of fireworks, and the artificial representation of lightning.
MATCH n.
ns at the rate of one yard in thirteen seconds, and is used as priming for heavy mortars, fireworks, etc. -- Slow match, slightly twisted hempen rope soaked in a solution of limewater and saltpeter or washed in a lye of water and wood ashes. It burns at the rate of four or five inches an hour, and is used for firing c…
PIN n.
in rack. -- Pin wheel. (a) A contrate wheel in which the cogs are cylindrical pins. (b) (Fireworks) A small coil which revolves on a common pin and makes a wheel of yellow or colored fire.
PYROTECHNIC; PYROTECHNICAL a.
Of or pertaining to fireworks, or the art of forming them. Pyrotechnical sponge. See under Sponge.
PYROTECHNICS n.
The art of making fireworks; the manufacture and use of fireworks; pyrotechny.
PYROTECHNIST n.
One skilled in pyrotechny; one who manufactures fireworks. Steevens.
ROCKET n.
An artificial firework consisting of a cylindrical case of paper or metal filled with a composition of combustible ingredients, as niter, charcoal, and sulphur, and fastened to a guiding stick. The rocket is projected through the air by the force arising from the expansion of the gases liberated by combustion of the co…
ROMAN a.
ling the modern steelyard. See the Note under Balance, n., 1. -- Roman candle, a kind of firework (generally held in the hand), characterized by the continued emission of shower of sparks, and the ejection, at intervals, of brilliant balls or stars of fire which are thrown upward as they become ignited. -- Roman Cath…
SERPENT n.
A species of firework having a serpentine motion as it passess through the air or along the ground.
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