Find the word definition

Crossword clues for icbm

icbm
The Collaborative International Dictionary
ICBM

ICBM \ICBM\ n. [acronym intercontinental ballistic missile] An intercontinental ballistic missile, a long-range ballistic missile that is capable of traveling from one continent to another. Contrasted with IRBM.

Syn: intercontinental ballistic missile.

ICBM

ballistic missile \bal*lis"tic mis`sile\, n. A rocket-propelled missile of long range which is guided only during the powered portion of its flight, which usually takes only a small part of the total flight time; -- contrasted with guided missile.

Note: Ballistic missiles are sometimes referred to by their range, such as an

intercontinental ballistic missile ( ICBM) or an

intermediate range ballistic missile ( IRBM).

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ICBM

1955, initialism (acronym) for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile.

Usage examples of "icbm".

Not only would it be able to cover ninety percent of the Soviet Union with an early-warning radar screen and look in on any part of the US via the astoundingly advanced American-built spy satellites, but it would also be able to independently target any of the Red Star ICBMs with pinpoint accuracy to any spot on the globe.

A program that had showed how the root invention of refrigeration had led to both frozen foods and ICBMs.

That's just a sample and I'll pass on-but please note its beautiful simplicity compared with H-bombs and ICBMs.

It is my fervent prayer that even if we should commit ourselves to a limited conflict, it will not spread into a worldwide holocaust, and that our ICBMs will rest forever in their silos, and our jet bombers will continue confined to their runways or routine missions, and that our Polaris submarines will cruise under the seas with their nuclear rockets safely unarmed.

They'd nailed dozens of ICBMs in flight, missiles we'd retasked as antisatellite weapons, then fried the silos those rockets launched from.

Those eight Typhoons alone carried unimaginable potential firepower, 160 ICBMs, mounting a total of over twelve hundred warheads of one-hundred-kiloton yield apiece.