megawatt

noun

1. One million (1 000 000) watts, an amount of power large enough to power such things as an entire commercial building or a small passenger aircraft. (Consuming 1 megawatt during a duration of 1 hour consumes 1 megawatt-hour of energy.)

   “Holonyms: GW, gigawatt < TW, terawatt < PW, petawatt”

   “Meronyms: mW, milliwatt < W, watt < kW, kilowatt”

   “Not long after the feds started regulating radio, Mexico's megawatt border blasters—high-powered stations planted just south of Texas and California—started beckoning. The FCC couldn't control them […]”

   “SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 — Pacific Gas & Electric, Northern California’s major utility, is announcing a commitment on Wednesday to purchase 550 megawatts of solar power to be generated by troughlike arrays of mirrors spread over nine square miles in the Mojave Desert.”

adj

1. (figuratively)Exceptionally powerful, intense, or enormous in impact.

   “I also love the way you always greet me with a megawatt smile.”

   “It has been nearly 30 years since Warren's first major hit, Laura Branigan's “Solitaire,” and her mega-watt success has seldom dimmed.”

   “Thanks to Parker's megawatt success in the NBA, kids in France began to dream of being like him and pursuing their own hoops dreams, which started to change the tenor of the game back home.”

   “As the opening riffs of megawatt single ‘Nice To Each Other’ kick in, the curtains open, revealing [Olivia] Dean in a sequinned pink gown, flanked by a slick band.”