Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a nuclear bomb.

1959		N.Y. Times Mag. 1 Feb. 46/3: There may be 5-inch nuclear shells and portable Davy Crockett ‘nukes’ for the infantryman.
1964		Time 25 Sept. 16/2: G [...] has described these tactical ‘nukes’ as ‘conventional’.
1977		(con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 61: There were always the Nukes, they loved to remind you that we had some, ‘right here in-country.’.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 125: She could whip out the aerosol and hit someone’s fence with a bit of anti-nuke graffiti.
1999		L. Gould Shagadelically Speaking 146: I got nukes up the yin-yang.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 97: The two Russian nukes we’ve smuggled into the top people’s shop Herods are tactical weapons.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

2010

J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 23: I craved the easy out of nuke devastation.

3. (US) a nuclear power station.

1969		Business Week 20 Sept. 52: More than 100 nuclear plants are scheduled [...] despite some picketing and..reprints of a Life magazine article questioning the safety of ‘nukes’ [OED].
1971		Time 13 Sept. 49: The nuke was directly responsible for the death of between 310,000 and 475,000 fish in a six-week period last year.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 27 Feb. 13: Nuke watchdog under attack.

4. (US) a nuclear powered weapon or ship, or one capable of firing nuclear missiles.

1960		Time 4 July 52/1: The nuclear submarines – called ‘nukes’ – can cruise underwater for weeks at top speed.
1980		T. McClenaghan Submariners I ii: cock: Act a nuke spook. spider: I don’t want that on my docs [...] It’d be a black mark. cock: Hell it will. It’ll just mean you won’t get submarines.

5. a nuclear family or a member of a nuclear family.

1988

M. Atwood Cat’s Eye (1989) 344: Women like me, with a husband, a child, have been referred to with some scorn as ‘nukes’.

6. (US drugs) marijuana which has been mixed with particularly strong or toxic substances.

2001

Da Smokehouse Marijuana Gloss. 🌐 nuke [us]- weed adulterated with especially dangerous and/or toxic substances.