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Definition of petards - 2 dictionary results

pe⋅tard

  [pi-tahrd]
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–noun
1. an explosive device formerly used in warfare to blow in a door or gate, form a breach in a wall, etc.
2. a kind of firecracker.
3. (initial capital letter) Also called Flying Dustbin. a British spigot mortar of World War II that fired a 40-pound (18 kg) finned bomb, designed to destroy pillboxes and other concrete obstacles.
—Idiom
4. hoist by or with one's own petard, hurt, ruined, or destroyed by the very device or plot one had intended for another.
Origin:
1590–1600; < MF, equiv. to pet(er) to break wind (deriv. of pet < L pēditum a breaking wind, orig. neut. of ptp. of pēdere to break wind) + -ard -ard
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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pe·tard   (pĭ-tärd')   
n.  
  1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
  2. A loud firecracker.

[French pétard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind, from pet, a breaking of wind, from Latin pēditum, from neuter past participle of pēdere, to break wind; see pezd- in Indo-European roots.]
Word History: The French used pétard, "a loud discharge of intestinal gas," for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. "To be hoist by one's own petard," a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means "to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices." The French noun pet, "fart," developed regularly from the Latin noun pēditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, "fart."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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