nukes

Noun

nuke (plural nukes)

1. (US, colloquial) A nuclear weapon.
   • "Mini-nukes" are "among the active unresolved nuclear issues in NATO at the moment," according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report. […] Mini-nukes, the report said, are the "new generation of tactical nuclear weapons which combine low and variable yield possibilities with enhanced...1974 January, Lloyd Norman, “The Reluctant Dragon: NATO’s Fears and the Need for New Nuclear Weapons”, in L. James Binder, editor, Army, volume 24, number 1, Washington, D.C.: Association of the...
2. (US, broadly, colloquial) Something that destroys or negates, especially on a catastrophic scale.
3. (US, colloquial) A nuclear power station.
   • Confronted with the threat of several nukes on the island, we soon realized that the Long Island Sound is being used as a massive cooling basin for nuclear reactors.1979, Anna Gyorgy et al., “Atomic Power, Nuclear Plants”, in No Nukes: Everyone’s Guide to Nuclear Power (Black Rose Books; no. I.49), Montreal, Que.: Black Rose Books, →ISBN, page 406
4. (US, colloquial) A vessel such as a ship or submarine running on nuclear power.
   • A nuke [nuclear submarine] can't survive with one flooded compartment. Any compartment that floods is going to kill you. Okay? Now, that's an acceptable risk because the nuclear hull is made of better steel. If a surface ship hits a nuclear submarine, the surface ship is going to sink, which we've...2006, Dan Gillcrist, “Apples and Oranges”, in Power Shift: The Transition to Nuclear Power in the U.S. Submarine Force as Told by Those Who Did It, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 145
5. (US, colloquial) A person (such as a sailor in a navy or a scientist) who works with nuclear weapons or nuclear power.
   • But nowhere in our military services is there a more highly trained, more qualified group of officers than the Navy's nuclear power officers – Navy nukes. The responsibilities the Navy's 4,300 nukes have to assume – procuring, testing, operating, and maintaining our nuclear-powered fleet – require...1991 summer, Grady Wells, “Getting Under Way with Navy Nukes”, in Tyrone D. Taborn, editor, US Black Engineer, volume 15, number 3, Baltimore, Md.: Career Communications Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 29
6. (US, colloquial) A cautionary flag placed on a release to label it as "bad" for some reason or another (e.g., being a dupe of a previous release or containing malware).
   • A nuke based on non existent rules or made up reasons can be undone – this is called and^([sic]) un-nuke.2009 June 12, TEAM FILEnetworks, “Scene NukeWars : Funniest nuke reasons ever”, in FILEnetworks Blog, archived from the original on 23 Mar 2021

See all 15 meanings of nuke