bomb

1 of 2

noun

ˈbäm 

1

a

: 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

7

a

British : a great success : hit

b

slang : one that is striking or extraordinary

—used with the

their new album is the bomb

8

a

: 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

2 of 2

verb

bombed; bombing; bombs

transitive verb

1

: to attack with or as if with bombs : bombard

The planes successfully bombed their target.

a bombed village

2

a

: 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

bombing noun

The city was subjected to heavy bombing during the war.

suicide bombings

Synonyms

Noun

• bummer
• bust
• catastrophe
• clinker
• clunker
• debacle
• débâcle
• disaster
• dud
• failure
• fiasco
• fizzle
• flop
• frost
• lemon
• loser
• miss
• shipwreck
• turkey
• washout

Verb

• barrage
• bombard

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

Set in a retro-futuristic 2296 after nuclear bombs decimated America, the Season 1 finale reveals some crucial information about who dropped the nukes and also teases at some video game Easter eggs that could appear in a future season. —Jordan Moreau, Variety, 12 Apr. 2024

Lee has already saved her life once, in an early scene, yanking her out of harm’s way shortly before a bomb explodes, leaving behind streams of blood and mangled body parts. —Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2024

Authorities found no evidence that the explosion was caused by a bomb or a drug lab and have also ruled out natural gas and appliance failure as the source. —Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 11 Apr. 2024

Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were seaside resorts favored by wealthy Romans when they were devastated by the eruption, which lasted for more than 24 hours and had the power of many thousands of nuclear bombs. —Patrick Smith, NBC News, 11 Apr. 2024

One day in December 1959, a small group of officials from the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy visited a NATO base in Europe to examine joint-custody nuclear bomb protocols. —Annie Jacobsen, TIME, 11 Apr. 2024

In Gaza, in their search for hostages, Israeli forces have raided hospitals, dug up gravesites and scoured tunnels used by Hamas to evade capture and hide from Israeli bombs. —Shira Rubin, Washington Post, 10 Apr. 2024

Roadside bombs along the Salah al-Din highway were meant to scare people off so that others would stop fleeing south but ended up hitting a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians, and killing more than 70 people. —Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2024

State police bomb technicians cleared the device and explosives detection dogs swept the area for any other devices, police said. —Zenebou Sylla, CNN, 9 Apr. 2024

Verb

The pace of such activities slowed for several years but then picked up again over the past decade, during which time the regime has kidnapped or assassinated several of its opponents on European soil as well as plotted to bomb an opposition gathering. —Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 12 Apr. 2024

Israel has been bombing Rafah for weeks, but President Joe Biden and numerous other world leaders have urged Israel not to invade the city, fearing massive civilian death tolls. —John Bacon, USA TODAY, 9 Apr. 2024

In consequence, the Russians have been left free to bomb the cities at will and are blasting away at their power systems. —Robert Zubrin, National Review, 7 Apr. 2024

In late February, Russian forces bombed the train station, now a pile of rubble. —Claire Harbage, NPR, 4 Apr. 2024

Israel bombed Iran’s embassy in Syria on Monday, killing seven military advisers, and Iran has vowed to retaliate after the strike. —Will Daniel, Fortune, 3 Apr. 2024

Videos posted on Instagram and geolocated by NBC News show large-scale destruction — the hospital’s special surgery building has been totally destroyed; walls have been bombed out and blackened, windows have been shattered. —NBC News, 2 Apr. 2024

In the past few months, deep in the forbidding deserts of central Syria, Russian forces have quietly joined the Syrian military in intensifying attacks against Islamic State strongholds, including bombing what local news reports called the dens and caves where the extremist fighters hide. —Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2024

Oil prices are near a six-month high after Israel bombed an Iranian consulate. —Morgan Haefner, Quartz, 2 Apr. 2024

Word History

Etymology

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.

Verb

derivative of bomb entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

1662, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

1688, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Phrases Containing bomb

• A-bomb
• atomic bomb
• bomb cyclone
• bomb scare
• bomb site
• bomb threat
• car bomb
• bomb squad
• buzz bomb
• carpet bomb
• cherry bomb
• dirty bomb
• cluster bomb
• dive-bomb
• drop a bomb
• f-bomb
• flying bomb
• fragmentation bomb
• H-bomb
• go down/like a bomb
• hydrogen bomb
• logic bomb
• letter bomb
• neutron bomb
• parcel bomb
• petrol bomb
• pipe bomb
• skip bomb
• review bomb
• smoke bomb
• stink bomb
• suicide bomb
• the bomb
• time bomb
• drop the bomb

Kids Definition

bomb

1 of 2 noun

ˈbäm 

1

a

: an explosive device that has a fuse and is designed to go off under any of various conditions

b

: atomic bomb

also : nuclear weapons in general

—usually used with the

2

: a container in which a substance (as an insecticide) is stored under pressure and from which it is released in a fine spray

3

: flop entry 2 sense 2

bomb

2 of 2 verb

1

: to attack with bombs

2

: to fail completely