Word of the Day

: November 20, 2017

bombinate

verb BAHM-buh-nayt

What It Means

: to make a sustained deep murmuring, humming, or buzzing sound : buzz, drone

bombinate in Context

The only sounds Jared could hear in the office that night were those of his own typing and the air conditioner bombinating.

"Black-marketeers and scalpers began buzzing around the theatres, bombinating ceaselessly, … 'Ten-for-five, ten-for five, ten-for-five.'" — Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey, 1991

Did You Know?

Bombinate sounds like it should be the province of bombastic blowhards who bound up and bombard you with droning blather at parties—and it is. The word derives from the Greek word bombos, a term that probably originated as an imitation of a deep, hollow sound (the kind we would likely refer to as "booming" nowadays). Latin speakers rendered the original Greek form as bombus, and that root gave forth a veritable din of raucous English offspring, including not only bombinate, but also bomb, bombard, and bound ("a leap or jump"). However, Latin bombus is not a direct ancestor of bombastic, which traces to bombyx, a Greek name for the silkworm.