Meaning of infernal machine | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A bespoke machine comprising a large bomb and an unmanned vessel or carriage carrying it to a target
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2. A booby-trap or improvised explosive device
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Examples

“The Prince of Orange likewise had recourse to the destructive effects of an infernal machine, in order to bombard Havre-de-Grace, and to set it on fire.”

“The vessel against which the infernal machine had been moored had been blown to atoms.”

“The infernal machines employed generally consisted of a crude kind of hand grenade filled with gunpowder, and lit by means of a piece of ordinary fuze. The effect of these bombs appears, in most instances, to have been of a comparatively harmless character, doing very little damage to buildings, and fortunately unattended with loss of life.”

“When a serious attempt was made upon Bonaparte's life by the explosion of an infernal machine, Fouché knew that the plot had been hatched and carried out by royalists […]”

CEFR level