powder

Pluralpowders

Formspowders, powdering, powdered

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Fine dry particles produced by grinding or pounding a solid, or formed as it slowly decays.

   Grinding the dried herbs released a fragrant green powder.

   Years of decay had reduced the documents to powder.

   Similardust

   Note

   The root sense, the one the whole family descends from: Middle English poudre, through Old French, from Latin pulvis, "dust, powder". The same Latin word gives pulverize and the doublet pulver. It names both what grinding makes, as when Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus vows to grind bones "to powder small", and what decay leaves behind. In the kitchen it settles into compounds such as chilli powder.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A blend of fine, scented dry particles applied to the face or body to reduce shine or ease chafing.

   The makeup artist set the foundation with a light dusting of powder.

   Dancers often use powder to keep their feet from chafing in tight shoes.

   Similartalc

   Note

   A cosmetic sense that is both countable and mass: a powder is one preparation, and powder is the stuff in general. Scent is part of it. Willa Cather's The Bohemian Girl (1912) has a dancer "redolent of violet sachet powder." The matching verb is powdering oneself, which needs no object at all.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An explosive mixture used in firearms, blasting, and similar work; gunpowder.

   Soldiers kept their powder dry during the river crossing.

   Miners packed powder into the drilled holes to break the rock.

   Similargunpowder

   Note

   Shortened from gunpowder, this is the word soldiers actually used. Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597) dismisses conscripts as "food for powder", men fit only to fill a pit. In phrases like keeping one's powder dry, the explosive is meant even though nothing is said about guns. Context rather than form separates it from ordinary dust.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To reduce a substance to fine particles by pounding, grinding, or rubbing.

   The apothecary powdered the dried roots before mixing his remedy.

   Industrial mills powder limestone into fine dust for cement.

   Similarpulverize, grind, crush, pound, mill

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To sprinkle something with powder, or with something that behaves like powder.

   Bakers powder their pastries with a fine layer of sugar.

   A heavy frost powdered the meadow before sunrise.

   Similardust, sprinkle, coat

   Note

   The verb of the bakery and the dressing table is also a poet's. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) shows a circling zone "powdered with stars." Its most common construction is the past participle followed by with. That is literal in powdered surgical gloves and figurative when frost or stars do the sprinkling. It always takes an object. For dusting oneself, see the intransitive verb.

6. 6
   verbintransitive

   To apply powder to one's hair or skin.

   Eighteenth-century gentlemen powdered before attending court.

   She slipped away to powder before the ceremony began.

   Note

   Here the object drops away, as with dressing or shaving: one simply powders. Frances Burney's Diary and Letters (1778–1787) captures the routine of the dressing room, with a mistress who sends her away "while she is powdering." The hair was powdered as much as the skin. Out of context, a bare "she powdered" can be mistaken for the slang of leaving in a hurry.

7. 7
   nouncolloquialuncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of powder snow.

   Overnight snowfall left a foot of dry powder across the slopes.

   Skiers chase fresh powder through the back bowls all season.

   Note

   Skiers' shorthand: powder snow cut down to its first word, meaning freshly fallen snow that has not been packed. It is informal and uncountable. You ski fresh powder or deep powder, not a powder. Outside winter sports, the full powder snow avoids any confusion with dust or with the cosmetic.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To break down into fine dry dust, or to take on a dusty, powdery texture.

   Over the centuries the chalk cliffs powder under wind and rain.

   The ancient parchment powdered at the slightest touch.

   Similarcrumble, disintegrate

   Note

   The intransitive twin of the grinding verb: nothing does the work, and the material simply crumbles. Edward Knight, in The Clinical Journal (1934), blames kidney disease in Queensland on lead paint "which powders easily" in the long summer. Words of ease and speed, such as easily, are its natural company. Its subjects are usually aging surfaces like paint, chalk or old paper.

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of powder blue.

   The sneakers are available in three colors: black, sand, and powder.

   The online store lists the jacket in navy and powder.

   Note

   A clipping of the color name powder blue, a very pale blue. The full compound does double duty as noun and adjective (a powder blue scarf), and as an adjective it does not compare: nothing is more powder blue than something else. The bare clipping is only a noun. Because powder alone so easily suggests dust or makeup, it is safest where color is already the topic.

10. 10
    verbslangintransitive

    To depart suddenly; to make a quick exit.

    The con artist powdered the moment the deal went sour.

    If trouble starts, we powder before anyone can stop us.

    Similarbolt, flee, split, scram, skedaddle

    Note

    Slang squeezed out of the idiom take a powder: the verb alone means to clear out fast. Stephen King's The Wedding Gig (1980) uses it bare, saying the little man with the singing telegram "had powdered." It takes no object. It works best where the tone is already slangy, because out of context "she powdered" sounds like makeup rather than escape.

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