'Nitre' definitions:
Definition of 'nitre'
(from WordNet)
noun
(KNO3) used especially as a fertilizer and explosive [syn: potassium nitrate, saltpeter, saltpetre, niter, nitre]
Definition of 'Nitre'
From: GCIDE
- Niter \Ni"ter\, Nitre \Ni"tre\, n. [F. nitre, L. nitrum native soda, natron, Gr. ?; cf. Ar. nit[=u]n, natr[=u]n natron. Cf. Natron.]
- 1. (Chem.) A white crystalline semitransparent salt; potassium nitrate; saltpeter. See Saltpeter. [1913 Webster]
- 2. (Chem.) Native sodium carbonate; natron. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
- For though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me. --Jer. ii. 22. [1913 Webster]
- Cubic niter, a deliquescent salt, sodium nitrate, found as a native incrustation, like niter, in Peru and Chile, whence it is known also as Chile saltpeter.
- Niter bush (Bot.), a genus (Nitraria) of thorny shrubs bearing edible berries, and growing in the saline plains of Asia and Northern Africa. [1913 Webster]
Definition of 'nitre'
From: Easton
- Nitre (Prov. 25:20; R.V. marg., "soda"), properly "natron," a substance so called because, rising from the bottom of the Lake Natron in Egypt, it becomes dry and hard in the sun, and is the soda which effervesces when vinegar is poured on it. It is a carbonate of soda, not saltpetre, which the word generally denotes (Jer. 2:22; R.V. "lye").