How to Use detonate in a Sentence

detonate

verb
  • The first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945.
  • The team that detonates the bomb the fastest becomes the Tribunal of Four.
    Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 30 Apr. 2020
  • One method of attack is to detonate on contact with the side of the hull.
    Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 16 Nov. 2022
  • That allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin to detonate the primer.
    CBS News, 16 Aug. 2022
  • That allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin to detonate the primer.
    Susan Montoya Bryan, Chicago Tribune, 15 Aug. 2022
  • That allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin to detonate the primer.
    Naledi Ushe, USA TODAY, 15 Aug. 2022
  • That allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin to detonate the primer.
    CBS News, 16 Aug. 2022
  • Once on board, the plotters would combine the two and detonate a bomb.
    CNN, 26 Aug. 2021
  • One of them was found with a cellphone that may have been meant to detonate it.
    Anna Giaritelli, Washington Examiner, 23 Feb. 2021
  • The bombs will detonate in several hours, guess which ones have the bombs.
    Brian Flood, Fox News, 13 June 2023
  • One of the busiest bridges over that gulf has been detonated and may take time to rebuild.
    Paul J. Hastings, STAT, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Joséphine’s carriage had just reached the palace gate when the bomb detonated.
    National Geographic, 20 Dec. 2019
  • In these songs, noise is a means to detonate all conceptions of self.
    Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Lamb kebab is soft bites of ground meat that detonate with jalapeño.
    Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2020
  • The result is a pair of charm bombs detonating on both sides of a cardboard cutout.
    Inkoo Kang, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Feb. 2020
  • The email claimed that a pipe bomb was hidden in Greene’s mailbox, set to detonate over the weekend or when opened.
    Hanna Park, CNN, 10 Dec. 2024
  • But mines were still in the bushes, waiting to detonate.
    New York Times, 5 July 2022
  • The drillers are assigned to drill on the surface of the asteroid and detonate a bomb within it.
    Alexia Fernández, PEOPLE.com, 11 Jan. 2022
  • What’s a fore-end and how does a firing pin detonate a cartridge?
    Andrew McKean, Outdoor Life, 2 Oct. 2020
  • Serber used the angle of the window frame on the wall to calculate the height at which the bomb detonated.
    Kelsey Atherton, Vulture, 26 July 2023
  • Natasha was the one who made the call to detonate the bombs, knowing full well that Dreykov's innocent daughter would die in the blast too.
    Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 12 July 2021
  • The bombs fell wide and failed to detonate, and Ms. Dugdale and Mr. Gallagher went into hiding to plot their next move.
    Clay Risen, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024
  • In this case, the explosives failed to detonate, and there were no reports of injuries.
    Gordon Lubold, WSJ, 5 Nov. 2023
  • The core then failed to detonate in a Type Ia supernova.
    Lyndie Chiou, Quanta Magazine, 8 Feb. 2023
  • Suicide bombers drove pickup trucks to the gates of the two embassies and detonated thousands of pounds of TNT in the attacks.
    Phil Helsel, NBC News, 7 Feb. 2020
  • In 1997, a surprise predawn raid in Park Slope, Brooklyn, revealed a ready-to-detonate pipe bomb.
    Emily R. Daniel New York Daily News (tns), Star Tribune, 8 Nov. 2020
  • It was detonated after Bolles returned to his car and backed out of the parking lot.
    Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic, 31 May 2024
  • Trump said two women were found there wearing suicide vests that did not detonate but were killed on the scene.
    BostonGlobe.com, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Most of the iron in our blood and the sulfur in our amino acids originated in stars that detonated billions of years ago.
    Jayson Stewart, IEEE Spectrum, 5 Mar. 2025
  • These ants, known for their ability to detonate their own bodies, release a toxic secretion to neutralize the threat of invading predators.
    Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 5 Apr. 2025

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

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