Meanings
plural heat-rays
- literatureA weapon that fires a beam of extremely high temperature.
Near-synonyms: ray-gun, ray gun, death ray, energy weapon
1 more example
In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned[.]
1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 125Synonyms: ray-gun, ray gun, death ray, energy weapon
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA weapon that fires a beam of extremely high temperature.
nounSynonym of calorific ray.
Origin
The fictional sense was coined by British science fiction author H. G. Wells in 1896 in The War of the Worlds.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
heat-ray. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heat-ray
“heat-ray.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heat-ray. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “heat-ray,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/heat-ray.
Source: heat-ray on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.