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
• 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
• The video turns to color just as someone detonates the container with the men inside.
  — Demicia Inman, VIBE.com, 17 Oct. 2024
• Some Trump loyalists see the debt ceiling as a ticking time bomb, set to detonate in the middle of Trump's first year.
  — Hans Nichols, Axios, 20 Dec. 2024
• These guys are working around the clock now to try and find them, collect them and detonate them and allow the people to come back into their homes.
  — ABC News, 1 May 2022
• Dive towards the ground, dealing damage to enemies and detonating any Flame Fields hit.
  — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2025
• If they are gravely wounded, they have been instructed to detonate a grenade to avoid being captured alive, holding it under the neck with one hand on the pin as Ukrainian soldiers approach.
  — Marc Santora, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025