hyperdrive

American  

[hahy-per-drahyv] / ˈhaɪ pərˌdraɪv /

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.

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Etymology

Origin of hyperdrive

First recorded in 1950–55; hyper- ( def. ) + drive ( def. ), perhaps based on hyperspace ( def. ) and overdrive ( def. )

Example Sentences

The coalition’s work would put the development of enterprise software tools into hyperdrive, Huang said, helping speed the transformation of the world’s software-as-a-service industry into an agentic-AI-as-a-service industry.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 16, 2026

Family films often go into hyperdrive in the summer, capitalizing on long days out of school.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 24, 2024

Many gastrointestinal cancers grow uncontrollably when a mutation sets a key biological pathway that governs cell growth, called Wnt, on hyperdrive.

From Science Daily • Apr. 11, 2024

Lactate appears to send a signal through the receptor that kicks fat cell metabolism into hyperdrive, the team found.

From Science Magazine • Apr. 2, 2024

She kept on talking, her normal stream of chatter in hyperdrive.

From "Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World" by Ashley Herring Blake