Library / English Dictionary

ROCKET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A jet engine containing its own propellant and driven by reaction propulsion

Synonyms:

rocket; rocket engine

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rocket" is a kind of...):

jet engine (a gas turbine produces a stream of hot gas that propels a jet plane by reaction propulsion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rocket"):

booster; booster rocket; booster unit; takeoff booster; takeoff rocket (the first stage of a multistage rocket)

nuclear rocket (a rocket engine in which a nuclear reactor is used to heat a propellant)

retrorocket (a small rocket engine on a larger rocket or spacecraft that is fired to slow or alter its course)

space rocket (a rocket powerful enough to travel into outer space)

thruster (a small rocket engine that provides the thrust needed to maneuver a spacecraft)

Holonyms ("rocket" is a part of...):

projectile; rocket (any vehicle self-propelled by a rocket engine)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any vehicle self-propelled by a rocket engine

Synonyms:

projectile; rocket

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rocket" is a kind of...):

vehicle (a conveyance that transports people or objects)

Meronyms (parts of "rocket"):

rocket; rocket engine (a jet engine containing its own propellant and driven by reaction propulsion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rocket"):

missile (a rocket carrying a warhead of conventional or nuclear explosives; may be ballistic or directed by remote control)

multistage rocket; step rocket (a rocket having two or more rocket engines (each with its own fuel) that are fired in succession and jettisoned when the fuel is exhausted)

research rocket; test instrument vehicle; test rocket (a rocket fired for test purposes)

Derivation:

rocket (propel with a rocket)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Sends a firework display high into the sky

Synonyms:

rocket; skyrocket

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rocket" is a kind of...):

firework; pyrotechnic ((usually plural) a device with an explosive that burns at a low rate and with colored flames; can be used to illuminate areas or send signals etc.)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Propels bright light high in the sky, or used to propel a lifesaving line or harpoon

Synonyms:

rocket; skyrocket

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("rocket" is a kind of...):

visual signal (a signal that involves visual communication)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Erect European annual often grown as a salad crop to be harvested when young and tender

Synonyms:

arugula; Eruca sativa; Eruca vesicaria sativa; garden rocket; rocket; rocket salad; roquette

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("rocket" is a kind of...):

herb; herbaceous plant (a plant lacking a permanent woody stem; many are flowering garden plants or potherbs; some having medicinal properties; some are pests)

Holonyms ("rocket" is a member of...):

Eruca; genus Eruca (annual to perennial herbs of the Mediterranean region)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Propel with a rocket

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "rocket" is one way to...):

impel; propel (cause to move forward with force)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

rocket (any vehicle self-propelled by a rocket engine)

rocketry (the branch of engineering science that studies rocket design and operation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Shoot up abruptly, like a rocket

Example:

prices skyrocketed

Synonyms:

rocket; skyrocket

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "rocket" is one way to...):

arise; come up; go up; lift; move up; rise; uprise (move upward)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Credits

 Context examples: 

There they found the flung-out debris from the explosive birth of this clump of massive stars, looking like a cosmic version of fireworks with giant streamers rocketing off in all directions.

(ALMA Captures Dramatic Stellar Fireworks, ESO)

The second mission extension provided dozens of flybys of the planet's icy moons, using the spacecraft's remaining rocket propellant along the way.

(Cassini Spacecraft Ends Its Historic Exploration of Saturn, NASA)

The first-stage piece of the rocket landed on the ocean barge about eight minutes after liftoff.

(SpaceX Completes Successful Rocket Launch, VOA News)

This includes an estimated half-a-million marble-sized pieces of junk, while other items, such as discarded rockets and disused parts of space crafts, are much larger.

(Australia Developing Lasers to Track, Destroy Space Junk, VOA)

The landing signal was relayed to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, via NASA's two small experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, which launched on the same rocket as InSight and followed the lander to Mars.

(NASA InSight Lander Arrives on Martian Surface, NASA)

If the Moon has enough water, and if it’s reasonably convenient to access, future explorers might be able to use it as drinking water or to convert it into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel or oxygen to breathe.

(On Second Thought, the Moon's Water May Be Widespread and Immobile, NASA)

Launched in 2012 aboard an Atlas V rocket, CSSWE involved more than 65 students and was operated for more than two years from a ground station on the roof of a building on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.

(Six-decade-old space mystery solved with shoebox-sized satellite called a CubeSat, National Science Foundation)

When I had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood for disadvantageous.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Private space exploration company SpaceX has conducted its first successful launch since the explosion of a rocket on the launchpad in September.

(SpaceX Completes Successful Rocket Launch, VOA News)