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(
g
npa
d
(r)) Forms: 5 gonepowder, gonnepou(l)dre, -powdre, etc., gun-, gonpoudre, gonnpouldre, gounne pouldre, gonnepoder, gonn(e) powther, gunepoudir, gounpouder, etc., 6 gonepother, Sc. gun puldir, 6-7 gunnepouder, 6- gunpowder, 7- gun-powder. [f. GUN n. + POWDER n.]
1. a. An explosive mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, chiefly used in discharging projectiles from guns and for blasting.
[
a1387 Brev. Bartholomæi (Anecd. Oxon., Mediæval, I.
I. 3), Pulvis pro instrumento illo bellico sive diabolico quod vulgaliter dicitur gunne.]
1411 Indenture in
Excheq. Accts. Q. R. Bdle. 44, no. 17 (P.R.O.), Une petit barell' de gonpouder. [Misdated 1338 by Nicolas
Royal Navy II. 476 App.]
1414 in Rymer
F
dera (1709) IX. 160 Aliquod Gunpoudre versus Partes exteras, in Portu prædicto.
1446 in
Archæologia XXII. 63 Bought ij hand~gunnes de ere iiij
s. Item, gonepowder iiij
s.
1464 Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.) 160 Item, payd ffor xij. li. gonnepowdyr..xij.
s.
1485 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 13 For ij barrelles Gonnepowdre.
1533 MORE Apol. xxxiv. Wks. 898/1 If he founde a corner of his neighbours house burning, he wold of greate loue and polycye lay on fagottes and gun~powder to put out the fyre.
1549 Compl. Scot. vi. 42 The reik, smeuk, and the stink of the gun puldir.
1555 Acc. in T. Sharp
Cov. Myst. (1825) 193 Payd for xij li of gonepother xij
s. vj
d.
1599 SHAKES. Hen. V,
IV. vii. 188, I doe know Fluellen valiant, And toucht with Choler, hot as Gunpowder.
1692 Capt. Smith's Seaman's Gram. II. v. 93 Gunpowder, as it is made in this Age, is compounded of Saltpetre six parts, and of Brimstone and Charcoal of each one part.
1797 Phil. Trans. LXXXVII. 290 The best gunpowder..is composed of 70 parts (in weight) of nitre, 18 parts of sulphur, and 16 parts of charcoal.
1827 CARLYLE Misc. (1857) I. 22 The three great elements of modern civilization, Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion.
1846 GREENER Sci. Gunnery 69 Gunpowder is a lever if exploded on a solid base, if not, its effects become limited in proportion.
b. white gunpowder: a name given to various explosives of recent invention; (a) (see quot 1875); (b) a blasting mixture made of chlorate of potash, potassium ferrocyanide, and sugar.
1875 Ure's Dict. Arts II. 767 Schultze's White Gunpowder is a tri-nitro-cellulose, prepared from sawdust.
c. with reference to tattooing.
1715 Lond. Gaz. No. 5363/4 His Name on his right Hand in Gunpowder D. W.
1718 LADY M. W. MONTAGU Let. to Abbè Conti 31 July, The women have their arms..and their necks and faces, adorned with..various sorts of figures impressed by gunpowder.
1791 J. I
RELAND Hogarth Illustr. I. 226, I think it is probable that these gunpowder initials are merely the marks of a woman of the lowest rank, and most infamous description.
d. fig.
1681 J. FLAVEL Meth. Grace xxviii. 474 Christian, thou knowest thou carriest gunpowder about thee; desire those that carry fire to keep at a distance from thee.
1900 Speaker 24 Mar. 674/1 Such mischievous words are just the sort of match to kindle the gunpowder of mob violence.
2. (In full, gunpowder tea.) A fine kind of green tea, each leaf of which is rolled up, so that it has a granular appearance.
1771 J. R. FORSTER tr.
Osbeck's Voy. I. 250 Tio-te is rolled up like pease... A smaller kind is called Gunpowder tea.
1795 Æ. A
NDERSON Brit. Embass. China 186 The shrub which bears what is called the Imperial and gunpowder teas.
1832 Veg. Subst. Food 379 Gunpowder tea is made of tender green leaves.
1839 THACKERAY Major Gahagan vi, ‘Is it bohay tay or souchong tay that you'd like?’..‘Any tea you like’... ‘What do you say, then, to some prime gunpowder?’
1886 Daily News 24 Dec. 2/6 Tea.
Ping Suey gunpowder.
3. slang. Some fiery drink. Obs.
1765 W. TOLDERVY Hist. Two Orphans II. 112 Tape, glim, rushlight, white port, rasher of bacon, gunpowder, slug, wild-fire, knock-me-down, and strip-me naked.
Ibid. II. 118 Come, here's t'ye, in a glass of gunpowder.
4. a. attrib. and Comb., as gunpowder-blue, flash, grinder, -law, -maker, match, mill, -pocket, -smoke, -squib, train, works; gunpowder-blackened adj.; also gunpowder cake, gunpowder in a cake or mass, i.e. before it is corned; gunpowder-engine, a gas-engine in which the movement of the piston is produced by the evolution of gas resulting from the combustion of gunpowder (Knight Dict. Mech. 1875); gunpowder-hammer, a pile-driving machine worked by the explosion of gunpowder (Ibid.); gunpowder-paper, paper spread with an explosive compound and rolled up into the form of a cartridge (Ibid. Suppl. 1884); gunpowder-press, a press for compacting mill-cake into hard cake preparatory to granulation (Knight, 1875); 
gunpowder spot, a ‘beauty spot’ produced by means of gunpowder (see quot. 1718 in 1c); gunpowder tea (see 2); gunpowder weed S. Afr., a name for Silene gallica, a plant having small black seeds.
1894 Westm. Gaz. 25 June 2/2 Lefebvre wishes to wash his *gunpowder-blackened hands.
1890 Daily News 21 Oct. 2/1 *Gunpowder-blue velvet.
1839 URE Dict. Arts 630 The mill for grinding *gunpowder cake.
1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. III. ii.
VI. iii. (1651) 559 Burning lust is but a flash, a *gunpowder flash.
1719 D'URFEY Pills IV. 199 The next that came by, was a *Gun-powder grinder.
1614 T. ADAMS Devil's Banquet 2 Lawes..enacted in the vault of darkenesse; like those vnder the Parliament-house; *Gunpowder-lawes, fit for the Justices of Hell.
1550 Acts Privy Council (1891) III. 50, xx
li to Charles Wolman, *gonne powther maker.
1627 CAPT. SMITH Seaman's Gram. xii. 57 Giue fire by a *Gunpowder match, to preuent traines to the powder chest.
1642 WOOD Life (O.H.S.) I. 74 The *gunpowder myll was at Osney where the fulling myll stood.
1777 T. TWINING to Burney 16 June in Louisa Twining
Country Clergym. 18th Cent. (1882) 51 With *gunpowder pockets under his armpits ready for the partridges in September.
1838 DICKENS O. Twist xxx, A couple of men catch one moment's glimpse of a boy, in the midst of *gunpowder-smoke.
1681 OTWAY Soldier's Fort. IV. i. Wks. 1728 I. 382 *Gun-pouder Spots and Moles.
1708 WILSON, etc.
Petronius Arbiter 207 Fine Gentlemen in the Boxes, with their Patches, Gunpowder-spots, and Tooth-pickers.
1660 FISHER Rustick's Alarm Wks. (1679) 94 [They] threw Stones and *Gunpowder-squibs that fired among us.
1611 RICH Honest. Age (Percy Soc.) 45 These diuelish practises, of poysons, of pistoles, of stabbing kniues, and of *gunnepouder traynes.
1860 HARVEY & S
ONDER Flora Capensis I. 127
Silene gallica... This is the ‘*Gunpowder-weed’ of the colonists; its black seeds resembling powder.
1897 EDMONDS &
MARLOTH Elem. Bot. S. Afr. xvii. 139
Silene... Several species of Campion, also the so-called ‘Gunpowder Weed’ (
S. gallica).
1926 J. B. D
AVY Man. Fl. Plants Transvaal I. 149 S[ilene] gallica... Gunpowder weed... The black seeds resemble grains of gunpowder, hence the vern. [
sic] name.
1946 M. W
ILMAN Check List Fl. Plants Griqualand W. 16 S[ilene] gallica..an increasingly frequent weed; September.
Gunpowder weed.
1839 URE Dict. Arts 621 The Royal *Gunpowder Works at Waltham Abbey.
b. Gunpowder plot: the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, while the King and Lords and Commons were assembled there. (So gunpowder conspiracy, treason, traitor, etc.) Gunpowder (treason) day: Nov. 5.
1611-12 in Swayne
Sarum Churchw. Acc. (1896) 161 Ringinge..on the daie of the Gunpowder treasonn.
1613 MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp., Canterb., For the ryngers on the goonpouder daye.
1626 Raleigh's Ghost 38 And to this I call vp the plot of all plots..the Gun-pouder conspiracie.
1630 WADSWORTH Pilgr. vii. 62 There is one Sir Edward Bainham, who was a grand complotter of the Gunpowder treason.
1654 WHITLOCK Zootomia 279 Even Gunpowder Enormities and Desolation did blow up all as at one crack.
1659 O. WALKER Oratory 61 The Earl of Northamptons speech against the gun-powder-Traitors.
1685 EVELYN Diary 5 Nov., It being the first Gunpowder Conspiracy anniversary that had ben kept now these 80 yeares.
1705 HEARNE Collect. 6 Nov. (O.H.S.) I. 66 Yesterday being Gunpowder treason 'twas observed more than it us'd to be at Lond.
a1715 BURNET Own Time III. (1724) I. 596 The fifth of November, being gunpowder treason day.
1796 J. C
AULFIELD (
title) The History of the Gunpowder plot.
1855 RUSKIN in Collingwood
Life I. 194 Am going to press..on Gunpowder Plot day.
1897 S. R. GARDINER Gunpowder Plot i. 7 Was Salisbury such an idiot as to inform his ‘domestic gentleman’ that he had made up his mind to invent Gunpowder Plot?
5. attrib. passing into adj. a. fig. Explosive as gunpowder; easily fired or inflamed.
1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV,
V. iv. 123, I am affraide of this Gun-powder Percy though he be dead.
1604 T. M. Black Bk. D4, Such Gunne-powder Oathes they were, that I wonder how the Seeling held together.
1625 BP. R. MONTAGU App. Cæsar. II. i. 112 Men of moving violent, Quicksilver, Gunpowder spirits.
1814 SCOTT Wav. lii, Would you have him peace-maker general between all the gunpowder Highlanders in the army?
b. Of a bluish colour like gunpowder.
1817 COLERIDGE Biog. Lit. I. 169 The lank, black, twine-like hair,..cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin gunpowder eye brows.
Hence 
gunpowderous, gunpowdery adjs., pertaining to or characteristic of gunpowder; of the bluish colour of gunpowder; fig. fiery, easily fired, inflamed, or irritated.
1868 Pall Mall G. 18 Nov. 3 It [the poetry] is gunpowdery to an intense degree.
1870 DICKENS E. Drood vi, His philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.
1871 M. LEGRAND Cambridge Freshm. 168 There was a very gunpowdery atmosphere in the room when Mrs. Cribb came in. ‘They're been lettin' off fireworks or something..’, she said.
1872 Daily News 20 July, Brought up amid gunpowdery scenes of this kind..is it to be wondered at that the young Maurice de MacMahon should have started in the army as a Legitimist fire-eater of the fiercest kind?
1889 Catholic Househ. 2 Nov. 3/2 To give gunpowdery battle to the Pope and all his satellites.
1897 Westm. Gaz. 29 Dec. 5/1 Among these were a good many stage
folkyou could tell them by their gunpowdery chins.
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