Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
name
A spherical subcritical mass of plutonium manufactured during World War II by the United States as a fissile core for an early atomic bomb.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: historical
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A essential instance or part of something, especially something malevolent.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: figuratively, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: beating heart
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Something that is especially dangerous and should not be tampered with, or otherwise reminiscent of the demon core.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: humorous, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
So called because of its involvement in two fatal criticality accidents at the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1945 and 1946. In the late 2010s, the circumstances of the second accident were popularized widely by science history videos and internet memes.
Across languages
6 source translations are retained for this English entry.
