Chernobyl syndrome
noun · first attested 1980s
The plant was not in Chernobyl, and the people who worked there did not live there either.
The cluster of illnesses attributed to radiation from the 1986 reactor disaster; also, the distrust of nuclear power that followed it.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
- Attested
- 1980s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Chernobyl
- In English
Chernobyl syndrome
Reactor four exploded on 26 April 1986 at a station about fifteen kilometers from the old town of Chornobyl, which gave the plant its name. Its workers lived in Pripyat, a town built for them in 1970 and evacuated a day and a half after the explosion. The second sense of the phrase, meaning fear of the technology rather than injury from it, mirrors the older China syndrome.