[ex.plo.sion] n [L explosion-, explosio act of driving off by clapping, fr. explodere] (ca. 1616) 1: the act or an instance of exploding "injured in a laboratory ~"
2: a large-scale, rapid, or spectacular expansion or bursting out or forth "the ~ of suburbia" "an ~ of red hair"
3: the release of occluded breath that occurs in one kind of articulation of stop consonants