Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) The action of deserting or abandoning.

Discharge from office; dismissal.

The condition of lacking something.

* 1906 , ‘Mark Twain’, in The Bible According to Mark Twain , 1996, p. 330:

He requires of his fellow man obedience to a very creditable code of morals, but he observes without shame or disapproval his God's utter destitution of morals.

An extreme state of poverty, in which a person is almost completely lacking in resources or means of support.

* 2009 , Rahila Gupta, The Guardian , 4 Aug 2009:

Destitution forces many asylum seekers to end up working for extremely low wages in catering, cleaning and construction, for example, without any protection against unscrupulous employers.

Noun

(en noun)

A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical.)

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author= Chico Harlan

, volume=189, issue=2, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Japan pockets the subsidy … , passage=Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion ."}}

A bursting due to pressure.

The sound of an explosion.

A sudden uncontrolled increase.

*

As with the Lejeuneaceae, this pattern of massive speciation appears to be correlated with the Cretaceous explosion of the angiosperms and the simultaneous creation of a host of new microenvironments, differing in humidity, light intensity, texture, etc.

A sudden outburst.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism. That worries the government, which fears that environmental activism could become the foundation for more general political opposition. It is therefore dealing with pollution in two ways—suppression and mitigation.}}