petard means A surname. It carries an Arena rating of 1493, earned across 4 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, petard ranks #390 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #876 of 42,749 for Qualifying, #2,347 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,515 of 17,131 for Scariest Words.
petard is pronounced /pɪˈtɑːd/.
Why “petard” is a great word
A small explosive device used historically to breach gates or walls. Its name derives from Middle French petard, from Modern French pétard ('firecracker'), from péter ('to break wind'), from Old French pet ('a fart'), first attested in English in the 1590s. Unlike a 'firecracker'—a celebratory noisemaker—or a general 'bomb,' a petard was a specific, intimate tool of demolition. It is the iron cup packed with powder and spiked to a wooden gate; the sputtering fuse in the silent dark before the assault; and the abrupt, shattering roar meant to splinter an obstacle. There is a dark, comical mortality to this weapon, named for the body's most vulnerable sound yet deployed to shatter stone—a reminder that our engines of destruction remain tethered to our humble, embarrassing origins.
Etymology
From Middle French petard; see Modern French pétard (“firecracker”).
noun
- A small, hat-shaped explosive device, used to breach a door or wall.
- Anything potentially explosive, in a non-literal sense.
- A loud firecracker.
verb
- To attack or blow a hole in (something) with a petard.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- petrary 63% match — A weapon used to hurl stones vs petard →
- perrier 57% match — A short mortar used for throwing stone shot. vs petard →
- petronel 54% match — A short but large-caliber, heavy 16th- and 17th-century firearm that used a matchlock or wheellock mechanism, intermediate between the arquebuse and pistol. vs petard →
- parafrag 53% match — A kind of small bomb dropped with a parachute, and pre-scored to break into one-inch pieces. vs petard →
- pedrero 52% match — A cannon that fires stone cannonballs. vs petard →
- detonator 50% match — A device used to detonate an explosive device etc. vs petard →
- airbomb 50% match — A firework consisting of flash powder in a paper case, ejected into the air with a black powder lifting charge ignited by a fuse, and producing a loud bang and bright flash. vs petard →
- farthingale 50% match — A hooped structure in cloth worn to extend the skirt of women's dresses; a hooped petticoat. vs petard →