kryptonite

plural kryptonites

1. figurativelyuncountableusuallyThe one weakness of something or someone that is otherwise invulnerable.

   But of course porn is kryptonite to many investors.

   2025 May 24, “OnlyFans has a shot at ditching its NSFW image”, in FT Weekend (Lex. section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20

   3 more examples

   The terrific seven-grain bread here is the kryptonite of restaurant reviewers: two mini-loaves and you are incapacitated.

   1991 October 25, Bryan Miller, “Restaurants: John Clancy's”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2021

   So while recording or sampling a Charlie Manson track […] makes for shock rock kudos aplenty, a devotion to Hubbard is kryptonite for credibility.

   2006 March 25, Jonathan Leggett, “Cult musicians”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2025

   We all have our own kryptonite or kryptonites, so don't tempt yourself by listening to so-called friends who are just demonic tools being used to bring you under.

   2016, Marlon Orlando Cole, Orphans: Nature's Beloved, page 93

   Synonyms: Achilles heel, weakness, Achilles heel, chink in the armor, glass jaw, soft spot, soft underbelly, vulnerability

2. slanguncountableusuallyCrack cocaine.

present singular third person kryptonites · participle present kryptoniting · participle past kryptonited · past kryptonited

1. transitiveTo expose to, or attack with, kryptonite.

   And even those two were pretty puny, like Superman after he had been kryptonited.

   1998, Phillip Gwynne, Deadly Unna?, Melbourne: Penguin, page 173

2. figurativelytransitiveTo destroy, wreck, or ruin; to affect adversely, as Superman is affected by kryptonite.