bikini

bikini
/bi kee"nee/, n., pl. bikinis.
1. a very brief, close-fitting, two-piece bathing suit for women or girls.
2. a very brief, close-fitting pair of bathing trunks for men or boys.
3. Often, bikinis. underwear briefs that are fitted low on the hip or below it.
[1945-50; < F, appar. named after BIKINI]

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Atoll with about 20 islets (pop. 1999: 13), Marshall Islands, Micronesia.

It was administered by the U.S. from 1947 as part of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under a UN trusteeship. The U.S. used the atoll for atomic testing 1946–58. The 167 inhabitants were removed before the tests began and returned in 1969, but they were evacuated again in 1978 because of high radiation levels. Cleanup there continued, and in 1997 Bikini was pronounced safe for habitation. The atoll became part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 1979.

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      an atoll in the Ralik (western) chain of the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The atoll was used for peacetime atomic explosions conducted for experimental purposes by the United States between 1946 and 1958.

      Lying north of the Equator, Bikini is 225 miles (360 km) northwest of Kwajalein and 190 miles (305 km) east of Enewetak Atoll. It consists of a ring of about 20 small coral islands whose average elevation is only some 7 feet (2.1 metres) above low tide level. The area of the group amounts to little more than 2 square miles (5 square km) of dry land, distributed about the edges of an oval lagoon 25 miles (40 km) long and 15 miles (24 km) wide. The largest islands are Bikini and Enyu (or Eneu). The atoll was known before World War II as Escholtz Atoll. It was administered by the United States from 1947 as part of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under a United Nations trusteeship until it became part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 1979.

      After Japan had been driven from the Marshall Islands in 1944, the islands and atolls, Bikini among them, came under the administration of the U.S. Navy. In 1946 Bikini became the site of Operation Crossroads, a vast military-scientific experiment to determine the impact of atomic bombs on naval vessels. The tests made it necessary to first relocate the atoll's 166 native Micronesians to Rongerik and then to Kili Island, about 500 miles (800 km) southeast of Bikini. The world's first peacetime atomic-weapons test was conducted at Bikini on July 1, 1946. A 20-kiloton atomic bomb was dropped from an airplane and exploded in the air over a fleet of about 80 obsolete World War II naval vessels, among them battleships and aircraft carriers, all of them unmanned. The second test, on July 25, was the world's first underwater atomic explosion; it raised an enormous column of radioactive water that sank nine ships. Further tests, some of them thermonuclear, were conducted from 1954 to 1958, when Bikini, together with Enewetak Atoll, constituted the Pacific Proving Ground of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. In 1956 Bikini was the test site of the first hydrogen bomb dropped by a U.S. airplane.

      The atoll suffered serious radioactive contamination from these tests. In 1969 the U.S. government began work on a long-range project to reclaim the land and, ultimately, to repatriate the Bikinian population. Some native islanders began returning to Bikini in the late 1960s, but they had to be moved back to Kili in 1978 when it became clear that radioactivity levels at Bikini were still dangerously high. In 1985, in response to a lawsuit filed by Bikini islanders, the U.S. government agreed to fund a cleanup of the island chain. Work began in 1991, and the first cleanup project was completed in 1998. However, radiation levels were still considered too high to allow resettlement, although they were deemed low enough to permit tourism on the atoll. In 1996 it was opened for scuba diving among the lagoon's sunken warships, and sport fishing began two years later.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Bikini — Bikini …   Deutsch Wörterbuch

  • bikini — [ bikini ] n. m. • 1946; marque déposée; nom d un atoll du Pacifique ♦ Vieilli Maillot de bain formé d un slip et d un soutien gorge. ⇒ deux pièces. « Nadine portait un bikini vert, très exigu » (Beauvoir). ● Bikini nom masculin (nom déposé)… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • bikini — BIKÍNI s.n. Costum feminin de baie, format dintr un slip şi dintr un sutien de dimensiuni reduse. – Din engl. Bikini, fr. bikini. Trimis de paula, 21.06.2002. Sursa: DEX 98  bikíni s. n. (sil. ni) Trimis de siveco, 10.08.2004. Sursa: Dicţionar… …   Dicționar Român

  • Bikini — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Para el atolón del Pacífico, véase Atolón Bikini. Bikini en un mosaico romano …   Wikipedia Español

  • Bikini — Sm zweiteiliger Badeanzug std. (20. Jh.) Onomastische Bildung. Entlehnt aus gleichbedeutendem frz. bikini. Dies ist eigentlich der Name eines Atolls der Gruppe der Marschall Inseln, das wegen der von den USA 1946 1958 dort durchgeführten… …   Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen sprache

  • bìkīni — (bikîni) m 〈G ja〉 dvodijelni ženski kupaći kostim minimalnih dimenzija ⃞ {{001f}}koza s Bikinija žarg. glupača, produžena postojeća metafora (po kozama na kojima su vršena promatranja učinka pokusa s nuklearnim oružjem na otoku Bikiniju) ✧… …   Veliki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika

  • bikini® — {{hw}}{{bikini®}}{{/hw}}o bichini s. m. Nome commerciale di un tipo di costume da bagno femminile a due pezzi. ETIMOLOGIA: da Bikini, nome di un atollo corallino luogo di esperimenti atomici, attraverso l ingl. bikini (nel senso di ‘costume… …   Enciclopedia di italiano

  • bikini — (n.) low cut two piece women s bathing suit, 1948, from Fr. coinage, 1947, named for U.S. A bomb test of June 1946 on Bikini, Marshall Islands atoll, locally Pikinni and said to derive from pik surface and ni coconut, but this is uncertain.… …   Etymology dictionary

  • bikini — bìkīni (bikȋni) m <G ja> DEFINICIJA dvodijelni ženski kupaći kostim minimalnih dimenzija FRAZEOLOGIJA koza s Bikinija žarg. glupača, produžena postojeća metafora (po kozama na kojima su vršena promatranja učinka pokusa s nuklearnim oružjem… …   Hrvatski jezični portal

  • bikini — {{/stl 13}}{{stl 8}}rz. n ndm {{/stl 8}}{{stl 7}} skąpy, dwuczęściowy damski strój plażowy : {{/stl 7}}{{stl 10}}Opalać się w bikini. Paradować w bikini po plaży. {{/stl 10}} …   Langenscheidt Polski wyjaśnień

  • bikini — ‘Traje de baño femenino de dos piezas’. Esta grafía, mayoritaria en el uso, es también la etimológica, pues esta voz procede del topónimo Bikini, nombre de un atolón de las islas Marshall; se considera también válida la grafía adaptada biquini.… …   Diccionario panhispánico de dudas

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