nuke
nuke Lexical Profile
nuke Game Scores & Validity
• noun
An informal term for a nuclear weapon, such as an atomic or hydrogen bomb.
"The international treaty aimed to reduce the number of active nukes held by the two superpowers."
An informal term for a nuclear power plant or a nuclear-powered vessel, especially a submarine.
"He worked for twenty years as a reactor technician at a commercial nuke in Illinois."
• verb
To cook, heat, or reheat food or drink in a microwave oven (informal).
"She decided to nuke the leftover soup for two minutes before sitting down for lunch."
To attack or destroy a target with nuclear weapons, or figuratively to obliterate or completely erase something such as digital data.
"When the software update corrupted the drive, the technician had to nuke the old partition and reinstall the operating system."
• Rhymes for nuke
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Coined in the late 1950s as an informal phonetic clipping and respelling of 'nuclear' (as in 'nuclear weapon' or 'nuclear power plant'). The playful culinary sense of heating food in a microwave oven emerged in the 1980s by analogy with radiation.