Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A city of northern Ukraine near the border of Belarus. It was evacuated and remains uninhabited as a result of a major nuclear power plant accident nearby on April 26, 1986.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun An abandoned city in northern Ukraine, known as the site of a nuclear accident.
  • noun by extension A major nuclear-energy accident.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a city in north central Ukraine; site of a major disaster at a nuclear power plant (26 April 1986)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Russian Чернобыль (Černóbyl’), from чернобыль (černóbyl’, "mugwort"). Compare Ukrainian Чорнобиль (Čornóbyl’), from чорнобиль (čornóbýl’, "mugwort"), from чорнe (čórne, "black", neuter) + билля (bylljá, "grass blades or stalks").

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Examples

  • Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images REMEMBERING CHERNOBYL: Chernobyl victims attended a commemoration ceremony in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday.

    Photos of the Day: Dec. 14 2010

  • TOKYO MarketWatch - There are some good reasons to sell Japanese stocks right now, but seeing the word "Chernobyl" in a headline isn't one of them.

    MarketWatch.com - Top Stories 2011

  • There are some good reasons to sell Japanese stocks right now, but seeing the word 'Chernobyl' in a...

    MarketWatch.com - Top Stories 2011

  • Within days, the name 'Chernobyl' had become a byword across the world for Soviet bungling -- and callousness, since Moscow, obsessed by secrecy, did not come clean about the disaster for nearly 36 hours.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • Within days, the name 'Chernobyl' had become a byword across the world for Soviet bungling -- and callousness, since Moscow, obsessed by secrecy, did not come clean about the disaster for nearly 36 hours.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • Sorry my knowledge of Chernobyl is admittedly limited unless you count a 1st person shooter game called Stalker.

    Think Progress » After warmest January in history, Vancouver airlifts in snow for Winter Olympics. 2010

  • The amount of uranium needed to cause something like Chernobyl is huge, like 500 kilos.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Real Torture Debate 2010

  • The amount of uranium needed to cause something like Chernobyl is huge, like 500 kilos.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Real Torture Debate 2010

  • Peter Boonstra and Marcel van Brakel (NL) are currently in Chernobyl, where they upload movies in an internet cafe.

    Boing Boing: July 11, 2004 - July 17, 2004 Archives 2004

  • Elena, in chapter 2 of Ghost Town, repeats the story that "Chernobyl is the name of a grass, wormwood (absinth)", which has been widely noted because of the nice scary connection with a couple of verses in Revelations:

    Archive 2004-05-01 Ray Girvan 2004

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