How to Use high explosive in a Sentence

high explosive

noun
  • Send them stealth bombers, high explosives, send in Seal teams and the tanks.
    — Amanda Morris, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2023
  • Run some det cord and high explosives to the wing joints, and make fast work of taking apart one of the Army's workhorses.
    — Jake Swearingen, Popular Mechanics, 18 Aug. 2015
  • Most were equipped with triggers on their noses — three small rubber balls on springs — to detonate high explosives.
    — Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2023
  • About 40 percent of each one’s weight is composed of a high explosive mixture; the rest comes from its steel case.
    — John Ismay, New York Times, 11 May 2024
  • Typical land mines consist of a metal body, high explosive charge, and a pressure switch.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 14 Nov. 2018
  • Of the twenty high explosive bombs dropped, sixteen hit the target area and twelve hit the lava tunnel in question.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 8 Dec. 2020
  • The bombers dropped 40 bombs, half were high explosive and the rest were WP smoke bombs to mark the impact points.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Once a target is located, the drone rams the target and detonates a high explosive warhead.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 29 July 2022
  • As the balloons dropped their last sandbags and neared the ground, other small flash bombs would trigger to drop the incendiary bombs and high explosive.
    — Keith Matheny, Freep.com, 14 Nov. 2019
  • These rockets are usually unguided and armed with a high explosive warhead of 10 pounds or less.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2021
  • Most bombings use what is called a low explosive, something like black powder, instead of a high explosive like dynamite.
    — Ali Watkins, New York Times, 1 Apr. 2018
  • The tank's 120mm main gun fires high explosive rounds or, even better, kinetic rounds that can punch holes in almost anything.
    — Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 22 Mar. 2018
  • The missile’s 500-pound high explosive charge then detonates, blowing the target apart from the inside.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 11 Feb. 2021
  • The high explosive round detonated shortly after leaving the gun barrel.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 25 Mar. 2021
  • Unlike other drones, the LJ-1 can be sent on a one way trip with a high explosive payload, turning it into a cruise missile.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 31 Aug. 2019
  • Minutes later, twenty-two miles and more to sea, towering waterspouts marked the landing places of the great projectiles, crammed with high explosives.
    — Scott Harrison, latimes.com, 11 June 2019
  • The warhead is designed to slam into a warship at blisteringly fast speed, then detonate a high explosive or even nuclear warhead deep in the bowels of the ship.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 26 Aug. 2020
  • The new cruise missile is designed to go after targets on land as a very long distance precision strike weapon with both high explosive or nuclear warhead capability.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 8 Jan. 2019
  • This variant, known as Sub-Harpoon, can deliver a quarter ton of high explosive against the hull of an enemy ship from over 100 miles away.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 11 Feb. 2021
  • Scientists have used bees to sniff out chemicals associated with cancer and with diabetes on patients’ breath and to detect the presence of high explosives.
    — Stephen Buchmann, The Conversation, 17 May 2023
  • The Air Force could quickly pass along target data to an Army artillery battery within range of the launcher, whose high explosive shells would get through any defense.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 15 Sep. 2021
  • The gun is capable of firing high explosive shells and anti-tank shells, and its 42-degree elevation gives it the ability to fire like a mortar or howitzer at non-line of sight targets.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 10 May 2021
  • Kinzhal reportedly has a range of 1,200 miles, can attack ground or naval targets, and packs a nuclear or conventional high explosive warhead.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 5 July 2018
  • Special-effects supervisor Scott Fisher and his team used high explosives and fuel, mixed to give the shape of a mushroom cloud, and then slowed the footage down to make the explosion seem bigger.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 10 Mar. 2024
  • In the 1950s, the Soviets began planting high explosives and arms across Western Europe.
    — Andrei Soldatov, Foreign Affairs, 9 Aug. 2024
  • On most days, mortar crews at the outpost lob dozens of rounds of high explosives and white-phosphorous smoke into the mountains, either to kill Islamic State fighters or just to discourage them from settling in.
    — Michael M. Phillips, WSJ, 15 May 2018
  • Deep below the Nevada desert, a machine dubbed Scorpius is under construction that will use high explosives to crush plutonium to states that exist just prior to a nuclear explosion.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 18 Oct. 2023
  • The pressure cooker bombs contained high explosive materials and nails to increase the harm to victims, said Makassar city police chief Witnu Urip Laksana.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 29 Mar. 2021
  • Other high explosives that might normally serve as viable alternatives to TNT, like RDX, are also in short supply.
    — Macklin Fishman, CNBC, 10 Nov. 2025
  • Five days earlier, stevedores in Brooklyn had finished loading her with a staggering 6 million pounds of high explosives, 13 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty.
    — Time, 21 Dec. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'high explosive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: