Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Thermobaric
/ˌθɜːrmoʊˈbærɪk/adjective
Describing a weapon that scatters fuel as an aerosol and ignites it, killing by sustained heat and blast pressure.
The Greek roots
θερμός
thermós
hot, warm
βάρος
báros
weight, pressure
Literally: “heat and pressure”
The story of the word
Two plain Greek nouns, heat and weight, name a weapon that works by pressure rather than fragments. Because the fuel burns using oxygen from the surrounding air, the blast wave lasts longer than a packed charge and reaches around corners into caves and rooms. Militaries also call these fuel-air explosives, which is more honest about the mechanism than the Greek is.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
barometerisobarthermometerthermal
In a sentence
Reports from the front described a thermobaric strike on the tunnel entrance.