bomb

Topic: WEAPONS

Date:	1600-1700
Language:	French
Origin:	bombe, from Italian bomba, probably from Latin bombus 'deep sound', from Greek bombos, from the sound

bomb
1 noun

bomb1 S2 W3 See pronunciation table in "How to use dictionary" pages

[countable]

weapon

PMW a weapon made of material that will explodeCOLLOCATIONS

COLLOCATIONS

a bomb explodes/goes off drop a bomb plant a bomb (=leave a bomb somewhere) detonate a bomb (=make a bomb explode) unexploded bomb bomb attack bomb threat bomb blast

Look up a word starting with D or S for samples of headword or sentence pronunciations on the LDOCE CD-ROM

Fortunately the house was empty when the bomb exploded.

The bomb went off at 9.30 in the morning.

Enemy planes dropped over 200 bombs during the raid.

Terrorists had planted a bomb somewhere in the station.

One theory is that the bomb was detonated by remote control.

Unexploded bombs were found there as late as the 1960s.

a bomb attack on a crowded bus in the city centre

The station was closed for six hours following a bomb threat.

the bomb blast that injured more than 100 people

➔ atomic bomb , car bomb , cluster bomb , hydrogen bomb , letter bomb , neutron bomb , nuclear bomb , parcel bomb , petrol bomb , smart bomb , smoke bomb , stink bomb , time bomb

bad performance/event

American English informal a play, film, event etc that is not successful:

This is just another one of Hollywood's bland and boring bombs.

be the bomb

informal to be very good or exciting:

That new P Diddy CD is the bomb.

the bomb

PMW used to describe nuclear weapons, and especially the hydrogen bomb:

Voices of dissent began to rise against the bomb.

cost a bomb

British English informal to cost a lot of money

make a bomb

British English informal to get a lot of money by doing something

Definition of bomb from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English within
the topic WEAPONS