Chernobyl

Borrowed from Russian Черно́быль (Černóbylʹ).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tʃɜːˈnɒbəl/, /tʃɜːˈnəʊbəl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɚˈnoʊbəl/
• Rhymes: -ɒbəl, -əʊbəl

Chernobyl

1. A partially abandoned city and ghost town in northern Ukraine, known as the site of a nuclear disaster.
   • 1991 July 26, Brad Knickerbocker, “Think Tank on the Efficient Energy Trail”, in Christian Science Monitor‎:

     A couple of oil shocks, a Chernobyl meltdown, and a Gulf War later, his basic message - the need to emphasize efficiency and renewable resources over oil and nuclear power - is still a minority view, […]

2. (by extension) The 1986 nuclear accident which resulted in the abandonment of the aforementioned city.

   After Chernobyl, very few nuclear power plants were built for years.

• Chornobyl

• Chernobylian
• chernobylite
• Chernobylite
• Chernobyl syndrome

Chernobyl (plural Chernobyls)

1. (by extension) A major nuclear-energy accident.
   • 1994 August, “Nuclear chaos”, in Popular Science, volume 245, number 2, page 54:

     Many secret cities were Chernobyls in slow motion.

   • 1999 May 6, Terence Scully, “When cell phones kill our brain waves, we will worry less”, in The Record (Kitchener, Ont.):

     The effects of a Chernobyl disaster in my community would probably be barely noticeable.

   • 2007 September 7, “Imagining a World Without Humans”, in NPR_TalkNation:

     So those would be a lot of Chernobyls that the ecosystem would have to deal with.

   • 2010 March 10, Ben Garcia, “Many Kuwaitis yet to be convinced on nuke energy”, in Kuwait Times:

     It has to be handled properly with great accuracy and no room for mistakes, because if we do have like a Chernobyl catastrophe, God forbid, it could wipe out our entire people.

• Bhopal
• Fukushima
• Hiroshima

• Cernobyl

Borrowed from Russian Черно́быль (Černóbylʹ).

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃɛr.no.bil/, /t͡ʃer.noˈbil/[1]
• Rhymes: -ɛrnobil, -il

Chernobyl ?

1. Chernobyl (an abandoned city in Kiev Oblast, Ukraine, site of a major 1986 nuclear accident)

Chernobyl f

1. Alternative spelling of Chernobil