Monday word: fulminate

[ersatz-read.livejournal.com]

fulminate (fo͝ol′mə-nāt′)
verb, intransitive
1. To make criticisms or denunciations; to rail.
2. To explode or detonate; to come on suddenly or intensely.
verb, transitive
1. To issue or pronounce with vehement denunciation
2. To cause to explode.
noun
1. An explosive salt of fulminic acid.

Etymology:  Latin, fulminare, to strike with lightning.

When related to criticism, usually used in the intransitive sense, and follwed by 'against':  "she fulminated against the use of baking soda in pancakes".

Comments

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

To expand on the last sense, fulminic acid is HCNO, and it readily makes salts with metals (such as mercury fulminate and silver fulminate, with the metal replacing the H). The NO bond is not very stable, and the salts are fiction-sensitive explosives, and so often used in detonators.

---L.