superbolt
superbolt noun: a rare form of lightning where the bolt is much stronger (such as 100x) and lasts much longer (such as 5x) than the usual forms of lightning.
Noun
superbolt (plural superbolts)
- A rare form of lightning where the bolt is much stronger (such as 100x) and lasts much longer (such as 5x) than the usual forms of lightning.
- A typical lightning bolt has an optical power of about 1 billion watts. The superbolt flashes radiate 100 billion to 10 trillion (10¹¹)-(10¹³) watts. They are quite rare.1979, Kendrick Frazier, The Violent Face of Nature: Severe Phenomena and Natural Disasters, Morrow, →ISBN, page 97
- This low lightning rate is insufficient to affect the global NOx production, however it may cause local enhancement near Japan where most superbolts occur.1981, Marta Kowalczyk, Lightning as a source of NOx in the troposphere
Forms of superbolt
| plural | superbolts |
|---|---|
| alternative form | super bolt |
| alternative form | super-bolt |
Origin of superbolt
From super- + bolt (“lightning bolt”).
Questions about superbolt
- What does superbolt mean?
- Superbolt means a rare form of lightning where the bolt is much stronger (such as 100x) and lasts much longer (such as 5x) than the usual forms of lightning.
- What part of speech is superbolt?
- Superbolt is a noun.
- What is the plural of superbolt?
- The plural of superbolt is superbolts.
Words near superbolt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: superbolt (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-superbolt.wav.
Cite this entry: “superbolt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/superbolt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.