petard

• pettard

From Middle French petarder; see Modern French pétard (“firecracker”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɪˈtɑːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɪˈtɑɹd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

petard (plural petards)

1. (historical) A small, hat-shaped explosive device, used to breach a door or wall.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     For tis the ſport to haue the enginer / Hoiſt with his ovvne petar, an't ſhall goe hard / But I vvill delue one yeard belovve their mines, / And blovve them at the Moone: […]

     For it's amusing to have the engineer / Hoisted into the sky with his own explosive, and if I'm lucky / I will dig one yard below their mines, / And blow them towards the Moon: […]

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “He is Concerned in a Dangerous Adventure with a Certain Gardener; […]”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 49, column 1:

     [...] Pipes, who acted as the enemy's forlorn hope, advanced to the gate with great intrepidity, and clapping his foot to the door, which was none of the ſtouteſt, with the execution and diſpatch of a petard, ſplit it into a thouſand pieces.

2. Anything potentially explosive, in a non-literal sense.
3. (rare) A loud firecracker.

• hoist by one's own petard

petard (third-person singular simple present petards, present participle petarding, simple past and past participle petarded)

Illustration of an attacker petarding a door

1. (now rare, archaic) To attack or blow a hole in (something) with a petard.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 56, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     The souldier, if he but goe to besiege a cottage, to scale a castle, to rob a church, to pettard [translating petarder] a gate, to force a religious house, or any villanous act, before he attempt it praieth to God for his assistance, though his intents and hopes be full-fraught with crueltie, murther, covetise, luxurie, sacrilege, and all iniquitie.

• depart, detrap, drapet, parted, prated, rapted, tarped, traped

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛ.tart/
• Rhymes: -ɛtart
• Syllabification: pe‧tard

petard f

1. genitive plural of petarda

From French pétard, used since 1600.

petard c

1. a petard (small bomb)
2. a petard (firecracker)

bomb

• sprängmina

firecracker

• knallsignal
• svärmare

• petardera
• petardör

• petard in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)