Strangelovian

English

Alternative forms

• Strangelovean

Etymology

From Strangelove +‎ -ian, referring to the title character in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a black comedy satirizing the nuclear weapons scare.

Adjective

Strangelovian (comparative more Strangelovian, superlative most Strangelovian)

1. Of or pertaining to nuclear apocalypse, especially through incompetence or shortsightedness.
   • 1987, “INF Agreement in Principle”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 43, number 9, page 5:

     Paul C. Warnke, President Jimmy Carter's first director of ACDA, came to Reagan's defense by noting the Strangelovian affection of some armchair strategists for nuclear weaponry.

   • 1994, Mother Jones Magazine (volume 19, number 1, Jan-Feb 1994)

     How many hundreds of millions of dollars have been sunk into Strangelovian bunkers, how many tens of thousands of hours invested in preparing for that apocalyptic vision? Only a handful of senior doomsday officials may ever know...

   • 2008, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews — 1967-2007, page 833:

     Just today, I read a Strangelovian story in the paper revealing that some of Russia's nuclear missiles, still aimed at the United States, have gone unattended because their guards were denied their bonus rations of four pounds of sausage a month.