megadeath

[ meg-uh-deth ]

noun

1. a unit of one million deaths: used in estimating or predicting the fatalities that would occur in a nuclear war.

megadeath

/ ˈmɛɡəˌdɛθ /

noun

1. the death of a million people, esp in a nuclear war or attack

Word History and Origins

Origin of megadeath¹

First recorded in 1950–55; mega- + death

Example Sentences

Even the nuclear realists, busy as their minds must be with calculations of acceptable levels of megadeath, would not want to overlook anything.

From Literature

“You don’t know whether they’re manufacturing pantyhose or megadeath,” he once said, in an often-cited observation about the people who might have been working inside the warehouses his pictures showed.

From New York Times

They wore white shirts with skinny ties and used a slide rule called the "Rand bomb damage effect calculator" to estimate megadeaths.

From BusinessWeek