Noun: nuclear
| Singular | nuclear |
| Plural | nuclears |
Sample Sentences
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The growth in wind capacity at first lagged behind the expansion of nuclear installations, but then it started to grow faster and is now outpacing nuclear. [2015, Vital Signs Volume 22: The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future, The Worldwatch Institute:]
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Admiral Burke believed that we would be able to beat off an amphibious attack, even if staged in conjunction with heavy aerial bombing, long enough to refer back to Washington and obtain authorization to use nuclears. [1958, Foreign Relations of the United States (page 118):]
Nouns inflected like nuclear
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Latin nū̆cleus, a contraction of the adjective nuculeus, masculine of feminine nuculea (“pertaining to a small nut”) from nucula + adjectival suffix -eus, -ea, -eum. The Latin nucula + -āris adds up to nuculāris, a term that in English becomes nucular; the Latin nuculea + -āris, becomes Latin nuculeāris (“relative to what pertains to small nut”), later contracted into nuclear. By surface analysis, nucleus + -ar. Compare muscle and Latin mūsculus; muscular and mūsculāris. See: Latin Nouns '
nū̆cleus', Latin Nouns '
nucula', Latin Nouns '
nuculea', Latin Nouns '
nuculeāris', Latin Nouns '
mūsculus'.