Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See niter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Chem.) See niter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK Alternative spelling of niter.
  • noun obsolete native sodium carbonate; natron

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (KNO3) used especially as a fertilizer and explosive

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French nitre, Latin nitrum native soda, natron.

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Examples

  • Mention of this substance is made in (Proverbs 25: 20) -- "and as vinegar upon nitre" -- and in (Jeremiah 2: 26) The article denoted is not that which we now understand by the term nitre i.e. nitrate of Potassa -- "saltpetre" -- but the nitrum of the Latins and the natron or native carbonate of soda of modern chemistry.

    Smith's Bible Dictionary 1884

  • You know, nitre is the most important stuff to make powder with.

    The New Germany 1932

  • They have calculated what quantity of matter convertible into nitre is to be found in Bedford House, in Woburn Abbey, and in what his Grace and his trustees have still suffered to stand of that foolish royalist Inigo Jones, in Covent Garden.

    Paras. 60-83 1909

  • They have calculated what quantity of matter convertible into nitre is to be found in Bedford House, in Woburn Abbey, and in what his Grace and his trustees have still suffered to stand of that foolish royalist, Inigo

    The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

  • Mr. Barrow, in his travels through the southern parts, of the continent of Africa, discovered native nitre, which is probably similar ta the rock saltpetre of Kentucky.

    Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1771

  • "In a Hydropicall body ten years buried in a Church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the Earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat, into the consistence of the hardest castle-soap: wherof part remaineth with us."

    A Bit of Soap Heather McDougal 2009

  • High fans meaning nothing keep the heat down, but the nitre keeps burning.

    it is completed, it is finished Jerry Ratch 2011

  • High fans meaning nothing keep the heat down but the nitre keeps burning

    Bitter the Sun When It Is in Hades Jerry Ratch 2011

  • "In a Hydropicall body ten years buried in a Church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the Earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat, into the consistence of the hardest castle-soap: wherof part remaineth with us."

    Archive 2009-06-01 Heather McDougal 2009

  • The name derives from the Latin nitrum and Greek nitron for "native soda" and genes for "forming" because of nitrogen's presence in potassium nitrate (KNO), so called salpeter or nitre or native soda.

    Nitrogen 2009

Comments

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  • Usage on (and in) gunpowder.

    October 14, 2008