superheavy

adjective

su·​per·​heavy ˌsü-pər-ˈhe-vē 

: extremely heavy

superheavy furniture

superheavy traffic

a superheavy discussion with his mother

especially, chemistry : relating to or being a chemical element with a greater atomic mass than that of uranium

The existence of superheavy elements, those with many more protons than uranium (proton number 92), was predicted more than 40 years ago.

—Georg Bollen

superheavy noun

plural superheavies

In February the world was treated to a transcontinental eureka moment: Scientists … announced they had discovered two new chemical elements. Called superheavies because of their large atomic mass, elements 113 and 115 lasted little more than a second.

—Elizabeth Svoboda

Examples of superheavy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Imitating a black hole’s causal powers requires an actual superheavy object, not just computer code. —Christof Koch, Scientific American, 8 Sep. 2023

The researchers’ mathematical analysis showed how any object with mass—and not just a superheavy one such as that of a black hole—affects the pairs of particles and antiparticles that emerge from the vacuum of space. —Adam Mann, Scientific American, 22 June 2023

Patience is key in the superheavy world because the vast majority of collisions in the reactor produce unwanted nuclei, and a vanishing few, if any, are superheavy elements. —Adam Hadhazy, Discover Magazine, 22 Jan. 2015

Much technical work remains, but the company appears to be well on its way to delivering a superheavy-lift rocket that is fully reusable, low-cost, and potentially capable of delivering as much as 100 tons to the surface of most bodies in the Solar System. —Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 1 Dec. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1822, in the meaning defined above