meltdown

See also melt down

English

Wikipedia

Noun

meltdown (plural meltdowns)

1. Severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor resulting in the core melting and radiation escaping.

   Four years have passed since the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, but the grim legacy of the Soviet catastrophe is still unfolding. [1]

2. A situation being likened to a nuclear meltdown; a crisis.
   • 2001, James Wickham, Perv Spoof Bosses Axe Wrestling (in The Daily Star)

     Channel 4 switchboards went into meltdown this week when viewers called to complain about a Brass Eye programme on child sex.

   Computer engineers were at a loss last night to explain why the Government had been hit by arguably the worst electronic meltdown in the history of Whitehall. [2]

3. (figuratively) A tantrum.

Derived terms

• nuclear meltdown
• market meltdown
• techno-meltdown

See also

• China syndrome

Translations

severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor

• Arabic: انصهار نووي (ar) m
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 堆芯熔毀 (cmn), 堆芯熔毁 (cmn) (duīxīn rónghuǐ)

• Czech: roztavení reaktoru (cs) n
• Dutch: kernsmelting (nl) f
• Finnish: (reaktoriytimen) sulaminen
• French: fusion du cœur d'un réacteur nucléaire (fr) f
• German: Kernschmelze (de) f
• Greek: τήξη (el) (tíxi) f 
• Hebrew: please add this translation if you can
• Hindi: नाभिकीय गलाव (hi)
• Hungarian: zónaolvadás (hu)
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Japanese: 炉心熔融 (ja) (ろしんようゆう, roshin-yōyū), メルトダウン (ja) (merutodaun)
• Kazakh: please add this translation if you can

• Korean: 노심 용해 (ko) (nosim yonghae)
• Persian: ذوب‌شدن سوخت هسته‌ای (fa)
• Polish: stopienie rdzenia reaktora jądrowego (pl) n
• Portuguese: derretimento nuclear (pt) m
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: разрушение из-за расплавления (ru) (razrušénije íz-za rasplavlénija) n , расплавление (ru) (rasplavlénije) n , расплавление активной зоны ядерного реактора (ru) (rasplavlénije aktívnoj zóny jádernovo reáktora) n , мелтдаун (ru) (mɛltdáun) m 
• Serbo-Croatian: please add this translation if you can
• Slovak: please add this translation if you can
• Slovene: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: fusión de núcleo (es) f
• Swedish: härdsmälta (sv) c
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Urdu: please add this translation if you can

situation being likened to a nuclear meltdown

• Finnish: romahdus (fi)
• Portuguese: catástrofe (pt) f

• Russian: встряска (ru) (vstrjáska) f 
• Spanish: escándalo (es) m, dilemma (es) m, explosión (es) f