red mercury

British

noun

a supposedly radioactive substance that could be used in a bomb made from nuclear waste, widely believed to be part of a confidence trick in which gangsters sold useless material to terrorists in the early 1990s

"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.

He said that Al Qaeda had been taken in by scams organized by criminal groups — for example, passing off red mercury as fissile material.

From New York Times • Apr. 12, 2010

Another con man tried to sell them radioactive garbage, claiming it was "red mercury," a supposedly lethal Russian bomb the CIA says never existed.

From Time Magazine Archive

Saddam apparently had high hopes for a bogus product called red mercury, touted as an ingredient for a handheld nuclear device.

From Time Magazine Archive

There was red mercury, a powerfully acting body, united with the tincture of antimony, at a gentle heat of the water-bath.

From Faust; a Tragedy, Translated from the German of Goethe by Brooks, Charles Timothy

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