the.com/firebomb
a recipe that turns a bottle of cheap liquor into a personal volcano
means An incendiary weapon designed to start fires on impact, or the act of attacking a target with one.
from A plain English compound of "fire" and "bomb," both old workhorses of the language — "fire" reaching back to Old English "fyr" (a cousin of German "Feuer" and Greek "pyr"), and "bomb" arriving via French and Italian from Latin "bombus," a booming or buzzing sound, itself echoing Greek "bombos." The word is a modern coinage, stitched together in the era of aerial warfare when dropping fire from above became a deliberate tactic, and it has since drifted to cover the homemade bottle-and-rag variety too.
- misnamed
- the Molotov was Finnish sarcasm aimed at a Soviet minister
- gel trick
- adding soap thickens fuel so it sticks and burns longer
- tank killer
- Spanish fighters used them against tanks in 1936
- legal limbo
- possession alone is a felony in many places
hamburg firebombing — operation gomorrah in july 1943 killed 37,000 people in one night
tokyo firebombing — march 9-10, 1945 incendiary bombing killed 100,000+ civilians in single night
molotov cocktail — improvised incendiary weapon used in finland 1939 and ukraine 2022-present