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doomsday device

noun

Etymology

Coined as Doomsday Machine by military strategist Herman Kahn.

Definitions

  1. A hypothetical weapon (often a bomb) programmed to automatically be used in response to…

    A hypothetical weapon (often a bomb) programmed to automatically be used in response to certain attacks, usually with very dire consequences (such as the annihilation of the world).

    • Near-synonyms: doomsday bomb, Dead Hand
    • For more than a year, ominous rumors had been privately circulating among high-level Western leaders that the Soviet Union had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the ultimate weapon: a doomsday device.
    • Of course, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, is calling for merging the S.E.C. with the easygoing Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in the financial equivalent of setting off a Doomsday Device.

  2. An extremely powerful weapon.

  3. Alternative spelling of doomsday device.

The neighborhood

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA