Machinery. the premature spontaneous burning of a fuel–air mixture in an internal-combustion engine due to the high temperature of air compressed in a cylinder.
Origin: 1670–80; < Medieval Latindētonātiōn- (stem of dētonātiō), equivalent to Latindētonāt(us) (see detonate) + -iōn--ion
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
the spontaneous combustion in an internal-combustion engine of part of the mixture before it has been reached by the flame front, causing the engine to knock
3.
physics rapid combustion, esp that occurring within a shock wave
1670s, "explosion accompanied by loud sound," from Fr. détonation, from M.L. detonationem, from L. detonare "to release one's thunder, roar out," from de- "down" + tonare "to thunder" (see thunder). Sense of "act of causing to explode" (mid-18c.) developed in French.