test ban

noun

: a self-imposed partial or complete ban on the testing of nuclear weapons that is mutually agreed to by countries possessing such weapons

Examples of test ban in a Sentence

a nuclear test ban treaty

Recent Examples on the Web

But so do subcritical tests — lesser experiments that a global test ban treaty allows. —William J. Broad, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2023

The test ban treaty, though signed by 187 nations, never entered into force because China, the United States and six other nations failed to ratify it. —William J. Broad, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2023

In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force launched the Vela satellites to make sure the Soviet Union was abiding by a nuclear weapon test ban. —Quanta Magazine, 13 Dec. 2023

Dropping ratification of the test ban treaty merely puts it on a par with the U.S., which never ratified the accord. —Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Nov. 2023

Talking about its testing may primarily be an attempt to intimidate the West and force concessions on Ukraine, but Moscow withdrawing from the nuclear test ban treaty would be a huge deal, Alberque said. —Yuliya Talmazan, NBC News, 6 Oct. 2023

These tests have helped seismologists find ways of discriminating between underground explosions and earthquakes, the thorny issue on which efforts to frame a total test ban originally foundered in 1963. —Mark Fischetti, Scientific American, 1 Nov. 2021

Kennedy’s push for pollution controls, new national parks and refuges, a nuclear test ban treaty, and a Wilderness Act (which would preserve large roadless areas forever) drew on the burgeoning movements against littering, pollution, and nuclear testing in which Carson had been active. —Scott W. Stern, The New Republic, 10 Jan. 2023

The test ban does have its limits. —Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 27 Apr. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above