hot zone

British

noun

computing a variable area towards the end of a line of text that informs the operator that a decision must be taken as to whether to hyphenate or begin a new line

"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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Photos from the scene showed the small brown-brick apartment building cut off from the road by red and yellow tape saying: "Contaminated area - do not enter - hot zone".

From BBC • Aug. 17, 2023

Tens of thousands of college students attended schools like Pace University and the Borough of Manhattan Community College in the WTC hot zone.

From Salon • Mar. 1, 2023

Just adding cops increases hot zone containment, but it does nothing for hot zone safety.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 11, 2022

The earthquake that shook Indonesia’s West Java province on Monday might sound deceptively mild — the 5.6-magnitude quake struck at 1:21 p.m. local time in a seismic hot zone that frequently sees much larger temblors.

From Washington Post • Nov. 22, 2022

I couldn’t see through the tangled vines into the former hot zone.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023