How to Use radioactive in a Sentence

radioactive

adjective
  • Uranium and plutonium are radioactive.
  • And would the radioactive balls warm the ice so much that the ice flowed faster at the base, speeding the balls’ trip to the coast?
    Paul Bierman, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Sep. 2024
  • The neon bugs on The Third Day look almost radioactive.
    Shannon Carlin, refinery29.com, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Like a radioactive neon green just poured out of my body.
    Cara Lynn Shultz, People.com, 16 May 2025
  • His tea was found to have been laced with radioactive polonium-210.
    Pan Pylas, Anchorage Daily News, 21 Sep. 2021
  • Smaker was now radioactive, and six years of work had gone down the drain.
    Sebastian Junger, National Review, 14 Oct. 2022
  • But what makes these wild German boars so radioactive in the first place?
    Stephen C. George, Discover Magazine, 7 Nov. 2023
  • Many of the above radioactive isotopes were released into the ocean at the time of the disaster in 2011—and some traveled.
    Chris Baraniuk, WIRED, 18 July 2023
  • Unwrap the plastic seal and don’t be alarmed that the cheese has developed a skin—it’ll all come out in the radioactive glow of the microwave.
    Alex Beggs, Bon Appétit, 12 Dec. 2024
  • There's also the intractable issue of where and how to store the deadly radioactive waste.
    Star Tribune, 26 Jan. 2021
  • Clues pointing to the radioactive waste emerged in the process of sorting through this DDT history.
    Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 2024
  • It’s one of the only sites in the country that accepts radioactive waste from other states.
    Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2021
  • Tritium has a radioactive half-life of a little over 12 years, according to the IAEA.
    Bloomberg News, oregonlive, 3 July 2023
  • There’s no chance of a repeat of 1986, when the explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over Europe.
    Richard Stone, Science | AAAS, 5 May 2021
  • There are rolls of packing tape to seal the windows from radioactive fallout.
    Adam Schreck, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Nov. 2022
  • Uranium, of course, is radioactive with a very long half-life.
    Don Lincoln, Forbes, 28 Apr. 2021
  • How can a battery made from radioactive waste be safe for human use?
    Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 30 Mar. 2021
  • Each impact creates a fireball about as hot as the core of the sun, followed by a radioactive mushroom cloud.
    Max Tegmark, Time, 29 June 2023
  • Like, a heap of dirty diapers on rotten eggs adorned with some radioactive waste kind of garbage.
    Marina Gomberg, The Salt Lake Tribune, 26 Feb. 2021
  • The trace amounts of radioactive waste produced in fusion have a half-life of less than 200 years, which is quite manageable.
    Wal Van Lierop, Forbes, 25 May 2021
  • Most Nevadans are opposed to storing the nation's radioactive waste at the site about 100 miles from Las Vegas.
    Michelle L. Price, Star Tribune, 10 June 2021
  • Most Nevadans are opposed to storing the nation’s radioactive waste at the site about 100 miles from Las Vegas.
    Michelle L. Price, ajc, 11 June 2021
  • Tritium is radioactive with a half-life of 12 years and global supplies are low.
    Daniel Clery, Science | AAAS, 2 Dec. 2020
  • Often, the meat of the pig is deemed too radioactive for human consumption and must be destroyed.
    Stephen C. George, Discover Magazine, 7 Nov. 2023
  • By the middle of 2020, NSO was seen as radioactive by some in the investment fund’s leadership.
    Ronen Bergman, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2023
  • The lead paint test tool contains small amounts of Cobalt-57, a radioactive metal used to make lead measurements.
    Clara Longo De Freitas, baltimoresun.com, 19 Aug. 2021
  • The past Apollo missions followed a tight trajectory to avoid the most radioactive part of the belts and traversed at a high speed.
    Mrigakshi Dixit, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Jan. 2023
  • From such small radioactive acorns do poisonous oaks grow.
    Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 19 May 2025
  • Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.
    Daniel Cohan, The Conversation, 10 June 2025
  • As a wave of radioactive green slime envelops him, his body begins to transform—limbs mutating, rows of bloody fangs emerging—his globular, wormlike form, slithering menacingly across the screen.
    Laura Holliday, Wired News, 2 May 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'radioactive.' 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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