bomb

Definition

An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.

Etymology

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.

Example Sentences

• "The size of the ground hole crater from the blast indicates it was a bomb."
• "During the Cold War, everyone worried about the bomb sometimes."
• "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."

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