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say it: ik-SPLOH-siv
explosive is an adjective and noun meaning "serving to explode or characterized by explosion or sudden outburst". It is pronounced /ɪkˈsploʊsɪv/ — ik-SPLOH-siv. It carries 4 recorded senses.
serving to explode or characterized by explosion or sudden outburst
“an explosive device”
“explosive gas”
“explosive force”
“explosive violence”
“an explosive temper”
liable to lead to sudden change or violence
“an explosive issue”
“a volatile situation with troops and rioters eager for a confrontation”
a chemical substance that undergoes a rapid chemical change (with the production of gas) on being heated or struck
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for explosive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.