Dictionary

Dr. Strangelove en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /dɑktər streɪndʒlʌv/ (US)

Etymology

From the character Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Meanings

1. Someone who is likely to launch a nuclear attack or otherwise destroy the world.
   • Just as the central question of the nuclear age was how to keep a Dr. Strangelove from pushing the button, the central question of the geoengineering age will be how to prevent a Dr. Strangelove from hacking the climate. 2010, Jeff Goodell, How to Cool the Planet, →ISBN:
   • When it was important in 1969 for Henry Kissinger to gain a reputation as a “secret swinger” to create a Dr. Strangelove reputation and provide cover for secret trips, he would appeal to White House wags and their friends (Richard Moore, television producer Paul Keyes, and this writer) for lines making that point. 2008, William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary, →ISBN, page 654:
   • His game theory became the foundation for modern finance. Dr Strangelove went to work on Wall Street. 2015, Katrine Marcal, Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?, →ISBN, page 62:
   • But CIA observers everywhere choked when CNN announced that a psychological trauma team, mustered by the American Psychological Association, would converge in Oklahoma City to treat survivors of the explosion and the victims' families—led by none other than Dr. Louis Jolyon West of UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, the breeding ground of some of the most necrotizing Dr. Strangeloves in the mind control business. 2014, Alex Constantine, Virtual Government: CIA Mind Control Operations in America, →ISBN, page 255:
   • In both the world of new science and that of quick-fix military technology we need, more than ever, to be on perpetual guard against the Dr Strangeloves of the future. 2012, Dr J Richardson, War, Science and Terrorism: From Laboratory to Open Conflict, →ISBN:
   • The Darth Vaders, Dr. Strangeloves and many people in positions of power have advocated the use of nuclear weapons to resolve conflicts. 2014, Jerry Kroth, Implosion: Delusion, denial, and the prospect of collapse, →ISBN, page 240:

Forms

Relateds

Dr. Strangelove syndrome · Strangelovian

wikipedia: Stanley Kubrick · wikipedia: Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb