Spaghettify
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To stretch an object into a long thin shape under the influence of a very strong gravitational field gradient, such as found near a black hole.
"If, for example, a black hole eats enough to triple its mass, then it will have grown three times as wide. For this reason, black holes in the universe can be almost any size, but not all of them will spaghettify you before you cross the event horizon."
Example
More examples"If, for example, a black hole eats enough to triple its mass, then it will have grown three times as wide. For this reason, black holes in the universe can be almost any size, but not all of them will spaghettify you before you cross the event horizon."
Etymology
Back-formation from spaghettification, equivalent to spaghetti + -fy.
Related phrases
More for "spaghettify"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.