doomsday device
nounEtymology Coined as Doomsday Machine by military strategist Herman Kahn.
1
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.1964, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, spoken by Narrator:
1 more example
- 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.2008 April 27, Ben Stein, “Wall Street, Run Amok”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2
An extremely powerful weapon.
- Related terms
- doomsday event, Dr. Strangelove, extinction event, nuclear deterrent