nuke
To warm food in a microwave oven, usually very quickly.
To heat or cook food in a microwave oven, usually quickly and without much care.
A casual word for a nuclear bomb or missile.
An informal word for a nuclear weapon, such as a nuclear bomb or missile.
To completely break or ruin something, usually as an exaggeration and not with real bombs.
To destroy, damage, or remove something completely, often used figuratively and not involving actual nuclear weapons.
To hit a city or enemy with nuclear bombs or missiles.
To attack a place or enemy using nuclear weapons.
To delete data or reset a computer or website so everything is removed.
In computing and internet slang, to delete, wipe, or reset data or a system so that nothing remains.
In games, a very strong attack or spell that hurts many enemies or does huge damage.
In video and computer games, a very powerful attack or spell that does massive damage, often to many targets at once.
A casual word for a military attack that uses nuclear bombs or missiles.
An informal word for a nuclear attack or strike using one or more nuclear weapons.
- Base: nuke
- Plural: nukes
- Base: nuke
- 3rd Person Singular: nukes
- Present Participle: nuking
- Past: nuked
- Past Participle: nuked
nuke and pave
1Wipe and reinstall a computer system
To completely erase a computer system and then install a fresh copy of the operating system.
- Your laptop is so full of junk that it's easier to nuke and pave than to clean it.
- The IT department decided to nuke and pave all the old machines.
- When in doubt, just nuke and pave the server and restore from backup.
nuke it
1Microwave something quickly
To tell someone to warm food or a drink quickly in the microwave.
- If your coffee's cold, just nuke it.
- Dinner’s in the fridge; you can nuke it when you get home.
- I don't feel like cooking, so I'll just nuke it and watch TV.
nuke it from orbit
1Destroy something completely and safely
To remove or destroy something so completely that nothing is left, often said jokingly about broken code, systems, or problems.
- The codebase is such a mess that we should just nuke it from orbit and start again.
- This old forum is full of spam; let's nuke it from orbit and move to a new platform.
- If the malware spreads again, we may have to nuke it from orbit and rebuild the network.
nuke the fridge
1Push a story past believability
To put a scene in a film or TV show that is so unbelievable or silly that many viewers feel the story has become bad.
- Fans say the series nuked the fridge with that last-season plot twist.
- Some people think the movie nukes the fridge in the final act.
- They were worried the new character might make the show nuke the fridge.
nuke the site from orbit
1Completely wipe and rebuild a site
To erase a website or system completely and start again from nothing, usually because it is too broken to fix.
- The forum is overrun with bots; we might as well nuke the site from orbit.
- After the second major security breach, they decided to nuke the site from orbit and relaunch.
- Sometimes it’s faster to nuke the site from orbit than to patch every broken part.