Denuclearize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To rid a nation, region, or area of all nuclear weapons and the capacity to build or deploy them
2. To strip a territory of its atomic arms and the facilities that support them, making it free of nuclear arsenals
3. To eliminate nuclear armaments from a place through treaty, disarmament, or other agreed measures

Etymology: Nuclearize is the older half of this word, and it is a fairly modern coinage. It was built from "nuclear" with the verb ending "-ize," which English took from Greek "-izein" by way of Latin "-izare" and Middle French "-iser." The English verb "nuclearize" came into use in the mid-twentieth century, when nuclear weapons and nuclear power had become the central technologies of the age. Denuclearize adds the prefix "de-," from Latin "dē-," meaning "down from," "away," or "reversed." Its job here is to reverse the process: to remove nuclear weapons from a country, region, or area, or to strip nuclear arms out of an arrangement. The prefix is the same one found in words like "decentralize" and "deforest," where it means taking something away.

Synonyms: disarm

Antonyms: nuclearize