first strike

1. 1.

   the initial use of nuclear weapons to attack a country that also has nuclear weapons; considered feasible only when the attacker can destroy the other country's ability to retaliate

   “the Pakistani president promised no first strike against India”

   Broaderstrike

Questions about first strike

What does first strike mean?

first strike means "the initial use of nuclear weapons to attack a country that also has nuclear weapons; considered feasible only when the attacker can destroy the other country's ability to retaliate".

Is first strike a common word?

first strike is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.