bomb

noun

\ ˈbäm

Definition of bomb

(Entry 1 of 2)

1a : an explosive device fused to detonate under specified conditions

b : atomic bomb also : nuclear weapons in general —usually used with the

2 : a vessel for compressed gases: such as

a : a pressure vessel for conducting chemical experiments

b : a container for an aerosol (such as an insecticide) : spray can

3 : a rounded mass of lava exploded from a volcano

4 : a lead-lined container for radioactive material

5 : failure, flop the play was a bomb

6 British : a large sum of money

7a British : a great success : hit

b slang : one that is striking or extraordinary —used with the their new album is the bomb

8a : a long pass in football

b : a very long shot (as in basketball) shooting 3-point bombs also : home run

9 : something unexpected and unpleasant —often used with drop dropped a bomb with her resignation

bomb

verb

bombed; bombing; bombs

Definition of bomb (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

1 : to attack with or as if with bombs : bombard The planes successfully bombed their target. a bombed village

2a : to defeat decisively

b baseball : to score many runs against (a pitcher) Allen tried a new slider pitch without success and was bombed in Cincinnati.— Jack Lang

3 : to hit (a ball, puck, or shot) very hard bomb a home run bomb a long drive down the fairway

4 slang : to fail (a test) I bombed my history exam.

intransitive verb

1 informal : to fall flat : to fail completely The movie bombed at the box office. a joke that bombed

2 informal : to move rapidly a car bombing down the hill

Other Words from bomb Synonyms & Antonyms More Example Sentences Learn More about bomb

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Examples of bomb in a Sentence

Noun

A bomb went off downtown. Many bombs were dropped on the city during the war. They hid a bomb in the building. countries that have the bomb

Verb

The city was heavily bombed during the war. The planes flew 200 miles to bomb their target. The movie bombed at the box office. The play bombed on Broadway. He bombed at his first performance. I completely bombed my math exam. A car was bombing down the highway. teenagers bombing around in a convertible

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun

After the woman dropped the F-bomb, Vu seemed to have had enough. — Caitlin O'kane, CBS News, "Woman's racist tirade against Asian nail salon owner caught on video," 13 June 2018 Those trapped in mining suits when the bombs fell turned into mole miners, stout little creatures that pack a big punch. — Sarah Leboeuf, Ars Technica, "Two weeks in, Fallout 76 is a lonely, glitchy, flawed mess," 28 Nov. 2018 Cesar Sayoc, the man arrested last Friday in connection with bombs mailed to CNN and several critics of President Donald Trump, appears to have threatened Democrats on Twitter and Facebook. — Anna North, Vox, "How mass shooters practice their hate online," 4 Nov. 2018 Denmark found the going tough in the attacking end, but nearly broke through with a long-range bomb of its own. — Avi Creditor, SI.com, "WATCH: Poulsen Gives Denmark Win Over Peru After Cueva Skies PK Chance," 16 June 2018 In 2003 in Erie, Pennsylvania, a pizza delivery driver named Brian Wells walked into a PNC bank with a collar bomb around his neck. — Lincoln Michel, GQ, "Evil Genius Is a True Crime Show About the Strangest Bank Robbery Ever," 23 May 2018 This was right after the guy who had been sending bombs to journalists’ homes and offices had been caught. — Eric Johnson, Recode, "Full Q&A: Ezra Klein and Kara Swisher on the future of journalism," 12 Dec. 2018 According to a criminal complaint, Hasher Jallal Taheb planned to form an assault group armed with guns, homemade bombs, an antitank weapon and hand grenades. — The Editorial Board, WSJ, "A Bloody Month of Jihad," 17 Jan. 2019 While various threats, sometimes referencing bombs, accounted for 15 percent of lockdowns, and police manhunts near campuses made up a similar share, at least 61 percent of lockdowns were related to firearms. — John Woodrow Cox, The Seattle Times, "Numerous school lockdowns are traumatizing the nation’s children," 26 Dec. 2018

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb

Many of President Trump’s biggest supporters in the media world are slamming his decision to bomb Syria on Friday, describing the move as a betrayal of his campaign promises to avoid entangling the US in more foreign conflicts as president. — Zeeshan Aleem, Vox, "Trump’s America First media allies think he has betrayed them with the Syria strike," 15 Apr. 2018 Putin has taken over Crimea and bombed Syria where women and children have lost their lives. — Elgin Courier-News, "Speak Out: Hair salon tour for Kim, Trump," 27 Mar. 2018 The Nazis rolled through France and had begun bombing Britain, while Charles Lindbergh proclaimed that the war was already lost. — Bradley W. Hart, WSJ, "Five Best: Bradley W. Hart on the War Before World War II," 18 Jan. 2019 The Walk, a good movie that nonetheless completely bombed at the box office. — Todd Vanderwerff, Vox, "Welcome to Marwen is just about the worst movie anybody involved in it has ever made," 20 Dec. 2018 Plenty of now-classic films bombed at the box office and/or were critically savaged at the time of their release. — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, "Complex networks study ranks the most influential films of all time," 3 Dec. 2018 Other recent examples: In 2017, two Coptic churches were bombed during Palm Sunday processions. — Marlo Safi, WSJ, "Is Sisi Good for Egypt’s Christians?," 10 Jan. 2019 There is the long history of Potsdamer Platz, a busy intersection of traffic and trams — once home to Europe’s first traffic lights — that was bombed to rubble during World War II and was later unsympathetically divided by the wall. — Carolina A. Miranda, latimes.com, "What the dismantling of the Berlin Wall can teach us as Trump tries to build his wall," 21 June 2018 Paris alleges that Tehran’s intelligence internal security section is linked to an attempt to bomb a rally of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or MEK, on June 30 outside the French capital. — Lorne Cook, The Seattle Times, "EU blacklists Iranian intel service over assassination plots," 8 Jan. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bomb.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for bomb

Noun

borrowed from Spanish or Italian bomba or French bombe, all probably in part from an onomatopoeic base bomb- (as in Greek bómbos "booming, humming," Old Norse bumba "drum," Lithuanian bambėti "to mutter, mumble," Albanian bumbullin "it is thundering"), in part back-formation from Medieval Latin bombardus or Middle French bombarde bombard entry 1

Note: The origin and transmission of bomba, bombe, etc., in the sense "explosive device, projectile, etc.," among European languages is not certain. Bomba is attested earliest in Spanish, appearing several times in the second half of the 16th century (canto 18 of La Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, the Descripción general de África of Luis del Mármol, the Historia de las cosas…del Gran Reyno de la China of Juan González de Mendoza). Mendoza's book (1585) is the source of an early and aberrant instance of bomb in English: his bombas de fuego is rendered as "bomes of fire" in Robert Parke's translation (The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China, London, 1588, p. 65). Bomba is recorded as Italian in Antoine Oudin's Italian-French dictionary (Recherches italiennes et françoises, Paris, 1640), where it is glossed "bombe, ou balon de feu" ("bomb, or ball of fire"), though it is not recorded in an Italian text until 1686 (Paolo Segneri, Il cristiano instruito, Florence, p. 327); Oudin's gloss also apparently constitutes the first record in French. Significantly earlier than any of these is Latin bombus, which occurs twice in the Commentarii, an account of the exploits of the condottiere Jacopo Piccinino in 1452-53 by the Neapolitan humanist Giannantonio de' Pandone, "il Porcellio" (ca. 1405-85); Pandone's bombus appears to be some sort of exploding projectile ("Hic Tibertus Dux bombi fulmine in ulna sauciatur" - "Here Tibertus [the condottiere Tiberto Brandolini] was wounded in the forearm by the flash of a bombus"); the 18th-century lexicographer Du Cange, in Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, glosses bombus in this passage, alluding to French bombe, as pila incendiaria, "fireball." Spanish bomba in the sense "pump," attested from the early 16th century, is probably an independent formation; cf. pump entry 1.