radioactive waste

See synonyms for radioactive waste on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. the radioactive by-products from the operation of a nuclear reactor or from the reprocessing of depleted nuclear fuel.

Origin of radioactive waste

1
First recorded in 1945–50
  • Also called nuclear waste.

Words Nearby radioactive waste

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

How to use radioactive waste in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for radioactive waste

radioactive waste

noun
  1. any waste material containing radionuclides: Also called: nuclear waste

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for radioactive waste

radioactive waste

Radioactive materials that may be left after a commercial or laboratory process has been carried out. Some is “low-level” waste, such as objects that have touched the radioactive tracers used in certain medical tests. Other waste may be “high-level,” such as the material left in a nuclear reactor after the fuel has been consumed.

Notes for radioactive waste

There has been public debate over the safest means of storing the waste, which can remain dangerously radioactive for up to hundreds of thousands of years. Present practice calls for encasing the waste in metal, concrete, and ceramic containers and burying the containers deep underground in geologically stable locations.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.