rocket fueln.

1931 Pop. Sci. Monthly June 12/3 We also have the nitroglycerin and other explosives and other forms of rocket fuel that have recently been developed.

1937 Discovery Sept. 277/2 Equipping this type of aeroplane with rocket engines, complete with rocket fuel.

1955 Sci. Amer. July 66/1 Some of the products already evolving are new types of phenolic plastics..and new rocket fuels.

1966 ‘A. Burgess’ Tremor of Intent i. iii. 35 Rockets are for outer space but also for knocking hell out of enemies. Rocket fuel can speed man into the earth or off it.

1985 Adv. in Agronomy 38 39 Perchlorate is widely used as a propellant in solid rocket fuels.

2008 Atlantic Monthly Sept. 30/1 A U.S. Navy cruiser launched a single SM-3 missile that slammed into a failed spy satellite carrying a half ton of toxic rocket fuel about 130 miles over the Pacific.

1958 Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune 16 Apr. 4/3 A volatile mixture of Mesta, minds and Menshikov, the newest social rocket fuel, is putting this town's parties into global orbit.

1973 Observer 30 Sept. 37/1 Fired with an unusually heavy dose of his favourite rocket-fuel [sc. whiskey], Dad duly goes through the roof.

1981 Yoga Jrnl. Mar.–Apr. 10/2 But how can sexuality be a spiritual rocket fuel?

1990 New Yorker 16 July 17/1 Their next hit, ‘Twist and Shout’ (1962), is simply incendiary—it was rocket fuel for the Beatles and a whole generation of musicians.

2002 D. Thompson Thai Food 174 Rice liquor is rocket fuel; the unsuspecting must beware being left amid the sheer vertigo of leglessness.

1976 J. R. Armore & J. D. Wolfe Dict. Desperation 46 Rocket fuel, PCP, phencyclidine, also known as Sernal or Angel Dust.

1985 Sunday Times 24 Mar. 12/2 PCP or ‘angel dust’, a strong anaesthetic which came after LSD in 1960s drug fashions..has recently emerged anew. Now they call it ‘rocket fuel’ in Chicago and mix it with peanut butter.

1997 N. Govinden in M. River Allnighter 65 I'm on a street corner somewhere near the flyover, buzzing on the rocket fuel I scored from James's neighbour this afternoon.

2000 Washington Post 19 Aug. b2 The four assailants attended the funeral of a friend who had been sold ‘bad’ PCP, or phencyclidine, a hallucinogen also known as ‘angel dust’, ‘supergrass’ and ‘rocket fuel’.