explode

Verb

explode (third-person singular simple present explodes, present participle exploding, simple past and past participle exploded)

1. (intransitive) To fly apart with sudden violent force; to blow up, to burst, to detonate, to go off.
   • The bomb explodes.
   • 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...2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43
2. (transitive) To destroy with an explosion.
   • The assassin exploded the car by means of a car bomb.

   Synonyms:

   blow up, blow, blast, burst

3. (figuratively, intransitive) To 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.
   • 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

   Synonyms:

   blow up

4. (figuratively, intransitive) To 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
   • 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. To increase arbitrarily or boundlessly.
   • The function f(x) = 1/x explodes around x = 0.
6. (transitive) To destroy violently or abruptly.
   • They sought to explode the myth.
7. (transitive) To create an exploded view of.
   • Explode the assembly drawing so that all the fasteners are visible.
8. (archaic, transitive) To disprove or debunk.
   • Astrology is required by many famous physicians […] doubted of, and exploded by others., II, 344
   • [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
9. (figuratively, intransitive) To emerge suddenly.
   • to explode into the mainstream; to explode onto the scene
   • 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

   Synonyms:

   burst

10. (slang, vulgar) To ejaculate.
11. To 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. (transitive) To 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. (transitive) To open all doors and hatches on an automobile.
14. (intransitive, board gaming) Of a die, to produce the highest face result and consequently reroll.