Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dry powder used to kill or expel insects; an insecticide or insectifuge.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • "You will find a tin of insect-powder in that wonderful Indian juggler of a portmanteau," she said, "and don't forget to use the blank exercise-book."

    The Petticoat Commando Boer Women in Secret Service Johanna Brandt 1920

  • The large, rather waterless island of Brać, which is nearest to the mainland, seems to be chiefly remarkable on account of its chrysanthemums, from which an insect-powder is produced; and the number of changes, no less than twenty, that occurred in the ownership of the island from the beginning of the Middle Ages down to the Congress of

    The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 Henry Baerlein 1917

  • I must tell him of a rattling good insect-powder I have invented; I think of patenting it.

    Born in Exile George Gissing 1880

  • Hansie thinks they were either hidden behind a photo-frame or in a tin of insect-powder, both these methods having been employed on various occasions, but at present we are only concerned with the fact that the instructions reached their destination safely, and from that day until the end of the war a gloriously free and uninterrupted communication was kept up between Harmony and Alphen and one spot in the north of Holland, of which we shall hear more as our story unfolds itself.

    The Petticoat Commando Boer Women in Secret Service Johanna Brandt 1920

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