Denuclearized

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Stripped of nuclear weapons, with such arms banned or eliminated from a country or territory
2. Having had all nuclear armaments removed from its area, so that no atomic weapons remain there
3. Cleared of nuclear arms through disarmament, leaving a region or nation free of such weapons

Etymology: The word is a participle of "denuclearize", which is formed from the prefix "de-", meaning "removal of" or "reversal of", attached to "nuclearize", the verb for equipping something with nuclear weapons or power. Its literal sense is therefore "to remove nuclear weapons from", and the reversal carries the meaning of the whole word. Each element is ordinary English: "de-" came into English from Latin "de", "nuclear" comes from the Latin "nucleus" meaning "kernel", and the "-ize" ending traces through Late Latin "-izare" and Ancient Greek "-izein". The word belongs to the decades after the atomic bombings of 1945, when the arms race made "nuclearize" a usable verb and a reverse formation followed naturally. Its past tense and participle, "denuclearized", carry the same sense of a completed action, as in a region or country that has already had its weapons removed.

Synonyms: nuclear-free

Antonyms: nuclearized