hyperdrive

[ hahy-per-drahyv ]

noun
  1. (in science fiction) a mode or function of a spaceship’s engine that enables it to travel at speeds faster than light, typically by moving through hyperspace: Sabotage caused the robot to accelerate the spacecraft into hyperdrive.In the movie, they had to activate the hyperdrive to keep their spaceship from falling into the sun.

  2. overdrive: Monsoon is the season when all of India goes into sowing-planting-growing hyperdrive.

Origin of hyperdrive

1
First recorded in 1950–55; hyper- + drive, perhaps based on hyperspace and overdrive

Words Nearby hyperdrive

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use hyperdrive in a sentence

  • In a world on permanent hyperdrive, the pressure to succeed in your career will come from everywhere.

  • There aren't a dozen and a half planets in the Old Federation that still have hyperdrive, and they're all civilized.

    Space Viking | Henry Beam Piper
  • Each of them had its own hyperdrive engines, and could travel as far and as fast as the ship herself.

    Space Viking | Henry Beam Piper
  • Gadolinium was essential to hyperdrive engines; the engines of a ship the size of the Nemesis required fifty pounds of it.

    Space Viking | Henry Beam Piper
  • And the Cavour hyperdrive was the merest will-o'-the-wisp, dancing wildly before him in his dreams.

    Starman's Quest | Robert Silverberg
  • Suddenly he saw the reason for Captain Donnell's abrupt growth of interest in the development of a hyperdrive.

    Starman's Quest | Robert Silverberg