meltdown

[ melt-doun ]

noun

1. the melting of a significant portion of a nuclear-reactor core due to inadequate cooling of the fuel elements, a condition that could lead to the escape of radiation.
2. a quickly developing breakdown or collapse:

   a bond-market meltdown;

   the meltdown of a marriage.

3. Informal. a sudden loss of control over one’s feelings or behavior:

   My toddler had a meltdown when I tried to leave the house.

meltdown

/ ˈmɛltˌdaʊn /

noun

1. (in a nuclear reactor) the melting of the fuel rods as a result of a defect in the cooling system, with the possible escape of radiation into the environment
2. informal.
   a sudden disastrous failure with potential for widespread harm, as a stock-exchange crash
3. informal.
   the process or state of irreversible breakdown or decline

   the community is slowly going into meltdown

meltdown

/ mĕlt′doun′ /

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

meltdown

1. The most serious accident that can occur at a nuclear reactor . In a meltdown, the radioactive material in the reactor becomes very hot, melting some or all of the fuel in the reactor. A meltdown may or may not be followed by the release of radioactive material to the environment. A partial meltdown, with very little external radiation , occurred at Three Mile Island (see also Three Mile Island ) in 1979; a complete meltdown happened at Chernobyl in 1986.

Word History and Origins

Origin of meltdown¹

First recorded in 1960–65; noun use of verb phrase melt down

Example Sentences

They wouldn’t respond to their meltdowns by holding them down or locking them away, instead of taking the time to figure out what is bothering them.

From Washington Post

I had to learn to steer clear of high-stimulus activities because they triggered meltdowns, where I am suddenly and uncontrollably overwhelmed to the point of physically acting out, yelling at people or sobbing, often all at once.

From Washington Post

He built Giga by acquiring several firms and, when the young firm was struggling after the dot-com meltdown in 2000, he sold it for about $60 million to Forrester Research.

From Washington Post

After the mortgage meltdown of the 2000s, regulators imposed so many new rules and restrictions that banks decided it was better to standardize their operations to avoid any missteps.

From Fortune

Executives at Bank of America, like their peers at JPMorgan and Citigroup, credit government stimulus, like the $2 trillion CARES Act, for preventing a meltdown.

From Quartz

The Big Five banks dubbed too big to fail, are 35 percent bigger than they were when the meltdown was triggered.

From The Daily Beast

Last year, it began to recover a bit for the first time since the meltdown—it was logged at $52,100 in June 2013.

From The Daily Beast

Then in 2008, the year of the meltdown, it dropped to $53,644.

From The Daily Beast

The deficit is down to 2.8 percent of GDP, from a high of 10.1 percent in the wake of the meltdown.

From The Daily Beast

But he had his debut as ‘supporting actor in a celebrity meltdown’ way back in 2007 with Britney Spears.

From The Daily Beast

Related Words

• accident
• adversity
• calamity
• casualty
• cataclysm
• crash
• debacle
• devastation
• disaster
• emergency
• failure
• fiasco
• hardship
• misery
• mishap
• tragedy
• trouble
• wreck