Word.ws English Dictionary

nuclear options

nuclear options is the plural of nuclear option.

Meaning of nuclear option

Noun

nuclear option (plural nuclear options)

  1. (idiomatic) In resolving a problem, the possible course of action that is considered the most extreme because of its collateral consequences.
    • Mr. Storey said his “nuclear option” was moving to Ocean Drive and living in his house full time, but that, too, came with obvious risks.2022 May 14, Richard Fausset, quoting Matt Storey, “Beach Houses on the Outer Banks Are Being Swallowed by the Sea”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2022
  2. (US) A procedure by which the United States Senate can decide any issue with a simple majority, rather than the usual supermajority.
    • So now that the Republicans have used the nuclear option to kill the poor filibuster to clear the way for the elevation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, we can lose perspective.2017 April 5, Steven Waldman, “Learning to Love the Nuclear Option”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2020

Questions about nuclear options

What is nuclear options the plural of?
Nuclear options is the plural of nuclear option.

Words near nuclear options in the dictionary

  1. nuclear meltdown
  2. nuclear meltdowns
  3. nuclear membrane
  4. nuclear membranes
  5. nuclear option
  6. nuclear options
  7. nuclear Overhauser effect
  8. nuclear Overhauser effects
  9. nuclear pasta
  10. nuclear physicist
  11. nuclear physicists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nuclear options (page history and authors); nuclear option (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “nuclear options.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nuclear_options. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.