noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A smokeless propellent made by combining two high explosives, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, used in some firearm ammunition. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   explosive powder (nitroglycerin and guncotton and petrolatum) dissolved in acetone and dried and extruded in brown cords wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

dynamiteexplosivepowder

Example

More examples

"Cordite is a smokeless powder of the British Services."

Etymology

From cord + -ite, because the material is manufactured into long cordlike cylinders.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.