supercritical
adjective
su·per·crit·i·cal
| \ ˌsü-pər-ˈkri-ti-kəl
\
\
Definition of supercritical
: being or having a temperature above a critical temperature
supercritical fluid
Examples of supercritical in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Other solvent methods involve drawing out the caffeine using only water (the Swiss water technique), or highly pressurized carbon dioxide (the supercritical carbon dioxide technique). — Carolyn L. Todd, SELF, "Turns Out Decaf Coffee Has Caffeine, Which Feels Like a Betrayal," 29 Aug. 2019 In the half-second that the dome was closed, the plutonium had gone supercritical, initiating a nuclear chain reaction and releasing a lethal dose of gamma rays that damaged Slotin’s cells beyond repair. — Julian G. West, The Atlantic, "The Atomic-Bomb Core That Escaped World War II," 2 Apr. 2018 In a supercritical brain, incoming signals would get lost in a frenzy of electrical activity, and the effect would be like trying to talk to a seizure victim. — Jennifer Ouellette, Quanta Magazine, "Brains May Teeter Near Their Tipping Point," 14 June 2018 The supercritical water reactor effort, called PWAC-109, was built with development assistance from Battelle and entered testing in 1954. — Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, "Best bad idea ever? Why Putin’s nuclear-powered missile is possible… and awful," 22 Mar. 2018 In the half-second that the dome was closed, the plutonium had gone supercritical, initiating a nuclear chain reaction and releasing a lethal dose of gamma rays that damaged Slotin’s cells beyond repair. — Julian G. West, The Atlantic, "The Atomic-Bomb Core That Escaped World War II," 2 Apr. 2018 At CANEL, Pratt & Whitney also experimented with systems based on other coolants, including supercritical water (in which the water/steam is kept at extremely high pressures that force it to remain a fluid), sodium, and lithium. — Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, "Best bad idea ever? Why Putin’s nuclear-powered missile is possible… and awful," 22 Mar. 2018 The questions covered a wide swath of material, from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (physics), supercritical water (chemistry), dendritic drainage patterns (geomorphology) to prime factors (mathematics). — Silvia Foster-frau, San Antonio Express-News, "BASIS middle school and Reagan High teams to compete in National Science Bowl," 10 Feb. 2018 If there was ever a need to rein in the supercritical hysteria that the websites of the New York Times and the Washington Post and MSNBC on-air feed when their competitive dander is up, Tuesday showed it. — Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, "On Don Jr., the Media Can’t Help Itself," 14 July 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'supercritical.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more