1
: a nuclear weapon
2
: a nuclear-powered electric generating station
nuked; nuking
Synonyms
Examples of nuke in a Sentence
Verb
a pretty sizable piece of real estate would be nuked if an asteroid struck
Recent Examples on the Web
Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 13 Apr. 2024
Russia also seems focused on building tools to disrupt the delicate house of cards that the U.S. and its allies have set up in space, with recent warnings of nukes in orbit.
—George Dvorsky / Gizmodo, Quartz, 7 Mar. 2024
There are nukes, alien brain locks, intergalactic warfare and a scope that keeps expanding long after the stakes seem clear.
—Amy Brady, Scientific American, 11 Dec. 2023
The nuclear age impacted art all over the world as humanity came to grips with the massively destructive side of science, and, in what is one of the better sci-fi films of the '50s, America's nuclear hunger led to mega-sized insects escaping the desert nuke laboratories and heading to Los Angeles.
—Sarah Sprague, EW.com, 19 Oct. 2023
And since North Korea has their own nukes; nukes can deter nukes.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 12 Nov. 2023
The Outer Space Treaty—which was hammered out in 1967, before anyone even set foot on the moon—says no one can deploy nukes or claim territory for their own.
—WIRED, 8 Nov. 2023
South Korea has agreed not to build nukes as long as the U.S. rotates nuclear-capable forces into the country and agrees to include it in nuclear planning.
—Popular Mechanics, 10 May 2023
China is in the process of rapidly building nukes, and will likely double its nuclear arsenal to more than 1,000 warheads by the end of the decade, according to the Pentagon.
—Mathias Hammer, TIME, 13 Nov. 2023
Allison Morrow, CNN, 9 Apr. 2024
This shot also suggests that not all of the locations visited will be fully nuked out, too.
—Samuel Axon, Ars Technica, 5 Dec. 2023
Even before the switch-over, there was a subgenre on TikTok of people surprised to learn that they weren’t actually supposed to be nuking their cups.
—Emily Heil, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2023
Also: The robots have nuked Los Angeles, leaving nearly 1 million people dead, and judging from the brief glimpse the movie provides of our fair city, finally clearing up traffic on the 405.
—Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 29 Sep. 2023
The loss to Texas State really nuked confidence among the team and surrounding campus, so making this weekend’s game competitive would be a huge way to bounce back.
—Michael Haag, Dallas News, 7 Sep. 2023
This question, with its exclamatory urgency, has never been more relevant to Twitter than in the past 48 hours, when Musk decided to nuke 17 years’ worth of brand awareness and rename the thing.
—Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 25 July 2023
Some analysts saw the debate on nuking a NATO country as an orchestrated bluff to escalate Western nuclear fears, but others saw it merely as hard-liners venting about Russia’s failings in the war.
—Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 5 July 2023
If ninety per cent of Americans believe that Joe Biden should nuke Russia, does that mean that Joe Biden should nuke Russia?
—Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 21 June 2023
Noun
Will the military continue trying to quash the rebellion and bring out the big guns, like tactical nukes?
—Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 13 Apr. 2024
Russia also seems focused on building tools to disrupt the delicate house of cards that the U.S. and its allies have set up in space, with recent warnings of nukes in orbit.
—George Dvorsky / Gizmodo, Quartz, 7 Mar. 2024
There are nukes, alien brain locks, intergalactic warfare and a scope that keeps expanding long after the stakes seem clear.
—Amy Brady, Scientific American, 11 Dec. 2023
The nuclear age impacted art all over the world as humanity came to grips with the massively destructive side of science, and, in what is one of the better sci-fi films of the '50s, America's nuclear hunger led to mega-sized insects escaping the desert nuke laboratories and heading to Los Angeles.
—Sarah Sprague, EW.com, 19 Oct. 2023
And since North Korea has their own nukes; nukes can deter nukes.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 12 Nov. 2023
The Outer Space Treaty—which was hammered out in 1967, before anyone even set foot on the moon—says no one can deploy nukes or claim territory for their own.
—WIRED, 8 Nov. 2023
South Korea has agreed not to build nukes as long as the U.S. rotates nuclear-capable forces into the country and agrees to include it in nuclear planning.
—Popular Mechanics, 10 May 2023
China is in the process of rapidly building nukes, and will likely double its nuclear arsenal to more than 1,000 warheads by the end of the decade, according to the Pentagon.
—Mathias Hammer, TIME, 13 Nov. 2023
Verb
Then Meta nuked everything her website had ever published on its platforms, a block that lasted at least two hours, Kabas told CNN.
—Allison Morrow, CNN, 9 Apr. 2024
This shot also suggests that not all of the locations visited will be fully nuked out, too.
—Samuel Axon, Ars Technica, 5 Dec. 2023
Even before the switch-over, there was a subgenre on TikTok of people surprised to learn that they weren’t actually supposed to be nuking their cups.
—Emily Heil, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2023
Also: The robots have nuked Los Angeles, leaving nearly 1 million people dead, and judging from the brief glimpse the movie provides of our fair city, finally clearing up traffic on the 405.
—Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 29 Sep. 2023
The loss to Texas State really nuked confidence among the team and surrounding campus, so making this weekend’s game competitive would be a huge way to bounce back.
—Michael Haag, Dallas News, 7 Sep. 2023
This question, with its exclamatory urgency, has never been more relevant to Twitter than in the past 48 hours, when Musk decided to nuke 17 years’ worth of brand awareness and rename the thing.
—Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 25 July 2023
Some analysts saw the debate on nuking a NATO country as an orchestrated bluff to escalate Western nuclear fears, but others saw it merely as hard-liners venting about Russia’s failings in the war.
—Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 5 July 2023
If ninety per cent of Americans believe that Joe Biden should nuke Russia, does that mean that Joe Biden should nuke Russia?
—Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 21 June 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nuke.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Nuke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuke. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
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