Bomb Meaning
/bɒm/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
nounAn explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft., The atomic bomb.
Sentence Examples
A time bomb went off in the airport killing thirteen people.
A fanatic threw a bomb at the king's coach.
The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The terrorists planted a powerful ____ inside the crowded train station.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old ____ was safely defused by the specialists at the site city.
Word Origin & History
From French bombe, from Italian bomba, from Latin bombus (“a booming sound”), from Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos, “booming, humming, buzzing”), imitative of the sound itself. Doublet of bombe. Compare boom.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The size of the ground hole crater from the blast indicates it was a bomb."
— 2008, Sidney Gelb, Foreign Service Agent, page 629:
"If Alberta’s reserves are a carbon bomb, this global expansion of tar sands and oil shale exploitation amounts to an escalating emissions arms race, the unlocking of a subterranean cache of weapons of mass ecological destruction."
— 2014 April 25, Martin Lukacs, “Canada becoming launch-pad of a global tar sands and oil shale frenzy”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 190, number 20, page 13:
""The hard Brexiteers have built a bomb under the UK automotive industry and the EU have lit it," they said."
— 2018 June 6, “Brexit: EU advises businesses not to use British components because of Theresa May's plan to leave customs union”, in The Guardian:
"Mr. Gaetz’s loyalty to Mr. Trump, and willingness to toss proverbial bombs in Washington’s corridors of power, has shown no bounds, at least in public."
— 2024 November 14, Linda Feldmann, Henry Gass, “Trump’s eye-popping Cabinet picks show his top priority: Loyalty”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air / Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there"
— 1814, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, Francis Scott Key (lyrics), John Stafford Smith (music):
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The terrorists planted a powerful ____ inside the crowded train station.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old ____ was safely defused by the specialists at the site city.