spontaneous combustion

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spontaneous combustion

Ignition of a substance, such as oily rags or hay, caused by a localized heat-increasing reaction between the oxidant and the fuel and not involving addition of heat from an outside source.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

spontaneous combustion

(Chemistry) the ignition of a substance or body as a result of internal oxidation processes, without the application of an external source of heat, occurring in finely powdered ores, coal, straw, etc

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sponta′neous combus′tion

the ignition of a substance or body without heat from any external source.

[1800–10]

spon·ta·ne·ous combustion

(spŏn-tā′nē-əs)

The bursting into flame of a mass of material as a result of chemical reactions within the substance, without the addition of heat from an external source. Oily rags and damp hay, for example, are subject to spontaneous combustion.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

spontaneous combustion - ignition of a substance (as oily rags) resulting from an internal oxidation process

ignition - the process of initiating combustion or catching fire

Translations

autocombustione

spontaneous combustion

n → autocombustione f

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of Mr.

(quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be.

ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in more modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received.

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It rained all the time we were taking it back from the hulk, and now with this long passage it got heated, and there was another case of spontaneous combustion.

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All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants' hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.

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All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it.

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An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski .

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In accordance, the higher content of amorphous material that could be associated with NC-2 sample was exposed to a higher temperature during spontaneous combustion, which may be related to a possible conversion of quartz to amorphous silica.

Petrography and application of the rietveld method to the quantitative analysis of phases of natural clinker generated by coal spontaneous combustion

And, thanks to half-hearted pyrotechnics, a sudden explosion in Miss Havisham's skirts would seem, to those who did not already know the ending, that she was the victim of spontaneous combustion.

THEATRE Great Expectations/Liverpool Playhouse; ARTS DIARY

It is also prone to spontaneous combustion, which can cause problems for shipping and storage.

FOCUS: Tempura technology upgrades low-quality Indonesian brown coal

Chapters are in sections on spontaneous combustion and greenhouse gases, mineralogy and petrology, geophysics and modeling, geophysics and remote sensing, and coal fires and public policy.

Geology of coal fires; case studies from around the world

Liability: The susceptibility to theft; liability to damage; propensity to damage other freight when transported; perishability; propensity to spontaneous combustion or explosion; and value per pound.