Chernobyl
See also: Chernóbyl
English
Alternative forms
- Chornobyl (as transliterated from Ukrainian)
Etymology
From Russian Черно́быль (Černóbylʹ), from черно́быль (černóbylʹ, “mugwort”). Compare Ukrainian Чорнобиль (Čornóbyl’), from чорнобиль (čornóbýl’, “mugwort”), from чорне (čórne, “black”, neuter) + билля (bylljá, “grass blades or stalks”).
Pronunciation
Proper noun
Chernobyl
- An abandoned city in northern Ukraine, known as the site of a nuclear accident.
- 1991 July 26, “Think Tank on the Efficient Energy Trail”, in Christian Science Monitor:
- A couple of oil shocks, a Chernobyl meltdown, and a Gulf War later, his basic message – the need to emphasize efficiency and renewable resources over oil and nuclear power – is still a minority view
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Derived terms
Noun
Chernobyl (plural Chernobyls)
- (by extension) A major nuclear-energy accident.
- 1994 August, “Nuclear chaos”, in Popular Science, volume 245, number 2, page 54:
- Many secret cities were Chernobyls in slow motion.
- 1999 May 6, Terence Scully, “When cell phones kill our brain waves, we will worry less”, in The Record (Kitchener, Ont.):
- The effects of a Chernobyl disaster in my community would probably be barely noticeable.
- 2007 September 7, “Imagining a World Without Humans”, in NPR_TalkNation:
- So those would be a lot of Chernobyls that the ecosystem would have to deal with.
- 2010 March 10, Ben Garcia, “Many Kuwaitis yet to be convinced on nuke energy”, in Kuwait Times:
- It has to be handled properly with great accuracy and no room for mistakes, because if we do have like a Chernobyl catastrophe, God forbid, it could wipe out our entire people.
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Translations
city in Ukraine
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Portuguese
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