Reactor Meaning
/ɹiˈæktɚ/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence.
nounA structure used to contain chemical or other reactions.
Sentence Examples
The president made special remarks with reference accident in the nuclear reactor.
Red sky in morning; global warming. Red sky at night, reactor's alight.
Tom was unable to shut down the reactor.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The nuclear power plant's ____ must be kept cool to prevent a meltdown.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The nuclear ____ generated enough electricity to power the entire city for decades.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree English react Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin -ātor Old French -eorbor. Middle English -our ▲ Latin -torlbor. English -or English reactor From react + -or.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Altman seees his characters as total reactors; everything they do and say is in response to their environment. They do not seem to exist with lives or qualities of their own."
— 1983 December 31, Michael Bronski, “A Sharply Focused Film”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 24, page 17:
"Here, humans are seen as active participants in all dimensions of their lives, throughout their life course, and not simply passive reactors to the world around them."
— 2023, Anne L. Grauer, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology, Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN, page 7:
"It limits the rights of nonweapon countries to develop an export business in civilian reactor technology."
— 1972, Robert L Pfaltzgraff, Politics and the international system:
"It is hoped that a competition to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) will drive billions of pounds of investment into the technology, which the government hopes will be cheaper and quicker to build than traditional large nuclear power plants."
— 2023 July 18, Joe Middleton, “Shapps announces £157m in grants at launch of new UK nuclear body”, in The Guardian:
"The second is whether the federal agency has the power to license such facilities away from reactor sites where the waste was generated. […] The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled the NRC does not have the authority to issue licenses to store nuclear fuel away from reactors."
— 2025 March 4, John Fritze, “Supreme Court wades into decades-old impasse over how to store nuclear waste”, in CNN:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The nuclear power plant's ____ must be kept cool to prevent a meltdown.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The nuclear ____ generated enough electricity to power the entire city for decades.