From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpropellantpro‧pel‧lant /prəˈpelənt/ noun [countable, uncountable] 1 PMWan explosive for firing a bullet or rocket2 TDgas which is used in an aerosol to spray out a liquid —propellant adjective
Examples from the Corpus
propellant• The mission plan called for an upper limit on the amount of propellant that could be used during the descent.• In order to achieve a high speed the mass of propellant burnt must be much greater than the mass of the rocket.• In that case, we would think first of burning hydrocarbons with liquid oxygen, or even using the hydrogen-oxygen propellant combination.• However, there is no source of extra oxygen to expend as rocket propellant.• Next come the four segments that contain the solid propellant mixture.• The amount of thrust produced depends on how much of the propellant is burning at any one time.• Providing life-support materials would take on added importance only after we have found out how to operate the propellant business profitably.• This propellant combination performs well and permits a fairly compact vehicle design. 