bomb

n.

1. 1. An explosive weapon detonated by impact, proximity to an object, a timing mechanism, or other means.
   2. An atomic or nuclear bomb. Used with the.
2. Any of various weapons detonated to release destructive material, such as smoke or gas.
3. Football. A long forward pass.
4. 1. A container capable of withstanding high internal pressure.
   2. A vessel for storing compressed gas.
   3. A portable, manually operated container that ejects a spray, foam, or gas under pressure.
5. Slang. A dismal failure; a fiasco.
6. Slang. An old car.
7. Slang. One that is excellent or superior. Used with the.
8. Chiefly British Slang.
   1. A large amount of money.
   2. A great success.

v., bombed, bomb·ing, bombs.

v.tr.

To attack, damage, or destroy with or as if with bombs.

v.intr.

1. To drop a bomb or bombs.
2. Slang. To fail miserably: The play bombed.
3. Slang. To paint a graffito.

[French bombe, from Italian bomba, probably from Latin bombus, a booming sound, from Greek bombos, of imitative origin.]

noun

One that fails completely: bust, failure, fiasco, loser, washout. Informal dud, flop, lemon. See thrive/fail/exist.

verb

To be unsuccessful: choke, fail, fall through. Informal fall down, flop. Idioms: fail of success, fall short. See thrive/fail/exist.

v

Definition: fail miserably
Antonyms: do well, succeed, win

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1. v. General synonym for crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. “Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb.”

2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a Unix panic or Amiga guru meditation, in which icons of little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died. On the Mac, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to the Amiga guru meditation number. MS-DOS machines tend to get locked up in this situation.

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Bomb (from It.: bomba, in turn probably from Lat.: bombus, which refers to the signature booming sound). Bombs were initially fired from mortars and engineers sought to defeat them by applying earth and masonry protection to the roofs of key fortress installations, thus giving birth to the word ‘bombproof’. A conventional bomb has a casing containing explosives, a detonation or ignition system, and an initiation device or fuse. The fuse may be a simple mechanical striking mechanism, or involve the release of corrosive or volatile chemicals, or use electrical circuitry. The most complex fuses react when disturbed (physically or electrically), when atmospheric pressure changes, or when in proximity to the target area or object. The principal effect of a bomb is explosive blast, which may be combined with fragmentation or incendiary effects. It is the weapon of preference both for the very powerful, who can today drop it on those who displease them from a great height with tolerable accuracy, and of militarily negligible individuals or organizations wishing to register their lethal disapproval of something or somebody. A particularly popular sub-variant is the car or truck bomb, which lends itself to pressure, release, direct electronic (from the ignition switch), heat, remote control, tremble, and tilt initiation. The word is applied indiscriminately to everything from a nuclear device to a failed theatre production.

— Paul Cornish

In aerial warfare, the term bomb is applied to a wide range of containers filled with explosive, incendiary, or fissile material, or with chemical/biological agents, and designed for use as air‐delivered offensive weapons. Fusing and detonating devices are included, and external fins are usually fitted for directional stability. In the late twentieth century, particular attention has been given to the aerodynamics of bombs, and to devising methods of delivering them accurately.

When World War I began in 1914, little thought had been given by the military of Britain, France, or the United States to an air offensive. Most airplane bombs weighed about 20 pounds and were hand‐held. German airships, however, were equipped with racks that carried bombs of 110 pounds, and both Russia and Italy had built large aircraft capable of carrying total loads of over 1,000 pounds of bombs. From 1915 on, the first strategic bombing offensive was conducted by Germany against Britain, using airships and later large aircraft carrying bombs of up to 2,200 pounds. The material damage suffered was random and relatively slight, but the morale of the civil population was badly affected. As a result, assumptions were made about the drastic effects of strategic bombing on civilian morale, which proved unjustified in World War II.

At the tactical level, both on the battlefield and immediately behind it, aircraft carrying bombs typically of 112 or 230 pounds were, by 1918, providing effective support to the Allied armies. The U.S. Air Service became heavily involved in the air offensive after 1917, but lacked American equipment and had to rely upon aircraft and weapons of British or French design.

Between the wars, minimal defense budgets precluded significant weapons development, but the impetus of World War II produced remarkable advances. By 1945, the U.S. services were using bombs ranging from 100 to 4,000 pounds. (An experimental bomb weighing 42,000 pounds existed.) Also in the inventory were fragmentation, incendiary, and chemical bombs, some equipped with retarding parachutes for low‐level delivery. Armor‐piercing bombs were available, particularly for use against warships, and work had been done on fuel/air explosive weapons, which produced catastrophic blast effects by scattering and then detonating large clouds of combustible material. Dramatic demonstrations of the destructive capacity of conventional bombs were given by the Allied air forces in such cities as Hamburg (45,000 dead, 40,000 wounded), Dresden (approximately 60,000 dead), and Tokyo (over 80,000 dead), where firestorms were started by the combined effects of high explosive and incendiaries, killing people by the tens of thousands and effectively destroying the area bombed. Contrary to the interwar predictions, such destruction did not, by itself, bring about the collapse of the attacked state.

High degrees of accuracy were seldom achieved, despite the use of advanced bombsights, radar, and radio bombing aids, and a host of target‐marking techniques. Even the U.S. Army Air Force, which was committed to a policy of “precision” bombing, needed to drop very large numbers of bombs to ensure the destruction of a target. This was not true of bombs delivered at low level from a dive. The destruction of the Japanese carrier force at the Battle of Midway, for example, was accomplished by a relatively small number of bombs dropped by U.S. Navy dive‐bombers.

In August 1945, World War II was brought to an end when USAAF B‐29 bombers dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. The first (“Little Boy,” Uranium 235) fell on Hiroshima, and the second (“Fat Man,” Plutonium 239) on Nagasaki. Each target city was destroyed by a release of nuclear energy that was the equivalent of 20 kilotons of TNT. With this vast increase in the destructive capacity of single bombs, strategic bombing finally reached a point that matched the dire predictions of the interwar strategists. Subsequently, new theories of deterrence evolved to take account of the awesome power of nuclear weapons and to portray war at the highest level as an unacceptable risk for any nation.

Since World War II, high‐yield nuclear bombs have diminished in size while rising in destructive capacity into the multimegaton range, and smaller yield “tactical” nuclear weapons have been introduced. The range of conventional bombs now includes containers filled with napalm (petroleum jelly) and others carrying numerous small bomblets that can be used against vehicles and personnel, or to deny an area like an airfield to enemy use. Technological advances, including lasers, television, and radar guidance, allow guided—or “smart”—bombs to be delivered at a distance from the target and with great accuracy, hugely magnifying the effectiveness of conventional bombs. During the Persian Gulf War between the United Nations' forces and Iraq in 1991, the U.S. forces and their allies used guided bombs to great effect in crippling Iraqi command and control systems, one bomb often achieving the same damage as hundreds would have done in World War II.

[See also Air Force Combat Organizations: Strategic Air Forces; Air Force Combat Organizations: Tactical Air Forces; Bomber Aircraft; Bombing of Civilians; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bombings of; Korean War, U.S. Operations in the; Kosovo Crisis (1999); Nuclear Weapons; Persian Gulf War; Strategy: Air Warfare Strategy; Vietnam War, U.S. Air Operations in the; World War II, U.S. Air Operations in.]

Bibliography

• D. Lennox, ed., Jane's Air‐Launched Weapons, annual.
• JohnW. R. Taylor, A History of Aerial Warfare, 1974.
• Edward Jablonski, Air War, 1979.
• Bill Gunston, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft Armament, 1988.
• Martin Middlebrook, The Bomber Command War Diaries, 1990.
• Ron Dick, American Eagles, 1997

n. 1. a container filled with explosive, incendiary material, smoke, gas, or other destructive substance, designed to explode on impact or when detonated by a time mechanism, remote-control device, or lit fuse.

2. an explosive device fitted into a specified object: a package bomb.

3. (the bomb) nuclear weapons considered collectively as agents of mass destruction: she joined the fight against the bomb.

v.

attack (a place or vehicle) with a bomb or bombs: London was bombed, night after night.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

For more information on bomb, visit Britannica.com.

By the end of World War I, aerial bombing remained in the primitive stages. There were German raids on London and American pilots saw action, but the conflict ended before bombing reached its full potential. However, the seeds had been sown for decades of postwar controversy over the role of air power. Central figures were the Italian Air Force officer Giulio Douhet, author of The Command of the Air (1921); Sir Hugh Trenchard, the commander of the first independent air service, Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1919 to 1929; and the American brigadier general Billy Mitchell, whose unbridled advocacy of air power, although it led to a court-martial, would be tragically vindicated at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

Great advances in aircraft design occurred in the 1930s, with increases in speed, range, ceiling, and load-carrying capacity. By 1939, both the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) and the U.S. Navy had conceptualized the means by which they would employ aircraft in future bombing roles. The USAAC's principal emphasis was on long-range strategic bombing—bombing of an enemy's industry, transportation, fuel, and power as opposed to its military. They also recognized the need for tactical bombing—close-in support of ground forces on the battlefield. The U.S. Navy's interest lay primarily in dive-bombing in support of landing operations, striking targets protected by terrain from the low trajectory of naval artillery.

The shocking success of the German Luftwaffe early in World War II caught the world's attention, as did the daring Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Becoming the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) in February 1942, the former USAAC rapidly grew to unprecedented size. The U.S. and British Combined Chiefs of Staff recognized that several years would pass before Adolf Hitler's vaunted "Fortress Europe" could be struck by any other means than through the air. Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously commented that Fortress Europe lacked a roof, so it could be bombed by the Allies "around the clock." Beginning in August 1942 the USAAF joined RAF Bomber Command in attacks on Germany and occupied Europe almost until V-E Day (8 May 1945). Controversy surrounds these campaigns concerning their military effectiveness and moral appropriateness.

In the Pacific theater, USAAF and U.S. Navy bombing prior to late 1944 focused on supporting landing operations and destroying Japanese shipping. Continual bombing of mainland Japan began in November 1944 from bases in the Mariana Islands. These greatly intensified after March 1945 and culminated in the dropping of two atomic bombs on 6 and 9 August 1945, by B-29 Superfortresses. The lasting controversy of this event was exemplified by the National Air and Space Museum "Enola Gay" exhibit fiasco of 1995, in which revisionist historians attempting to politicize and criticize the bombings, minimizing Japan's guilt in World War II, met a firestorm of criticism from the general public and veterans. Japan's surrender prior to the planned invasion proved the effectiveness of these attacks, occurring, as they did, concurrently with a tight naval blockade.

With the National Security Act of 1947, the wartime USAAF finally became the independent service that air prophets like Billy Mitchell had long fought for. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) exemplified the then widely-held assumption that wars of the future would be won by nations capable of conducting atomic (later nuclear) warfare most efficiently on short notice. This assumption lay behind the subsequent buildup of the USAF's Strategic Air Command (SAC) into the most powerful air striking force in the world, armed with both bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's). SAC and its B-52 Stratofortresses would epitomize the Cold War for decades.

These assumptions about future conflicts also caused the tendency to look on the Korean War (1950–1953) as an aberration, not to be taken seriously as a portent of things to come. During the Vietnam War, the bombing in Indochina was conducted under a series of tactical and strategic restrictions that frustrated the airmen assigned to the task but that they nonetheless honored, often to their considerable peril.

With the rise of terrorism as an instrument of state policy, bombing proved adaptable to smaller conflicts. In April 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered England-based F-111 bombers to attack Libya in response to a terrorist bombing tied to Libyan intelligence. The raid subdued Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, deterring him from further attacks on U.S. interests and servicemen.

The remarkable F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter was first flown in 1981, in total secrecy, and became operational in 1983. Its existence was not confirmed by the American government until 1988. First used operation-ally in the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, by the Persian Gulf War of 1991, dramatic television footage appeared of F-117s dropping laser-guided bombs on Iraqi targets with pinpoint accuracy. The success of the Northrop B-2 Spirit "Stealth Bomber"—the most expensive warplane in history—remains to be seen in future operations.

Developments in the 1990s and After

In the Persian Gulf War (1991), bombing was aided by electronic suppression systems and airborne radar. These not only gave the United States extensive knowledge of the enemy opposition, but denied the Iraqis knowledge of, and communication with, their own forces, resulting in a remarkable victory for air power. While the state-of-the-art F-117 was the darling of the American media, the old Cold War and Vietnam-era warhorse, the B-52 Stratofortress, also performed very well. On January 16, 1991, B-52G bombers flying from Barksdale AFB, Louisiana to the Persian Gulf and back completed the longest bombing mission in history—a fifteen-hour flight. They attacked high-priority Iraqi targets in Iraq and Kuwait with air-launched cruise missiles packing a 1,000-pound conventional warhead. The next day, air strikes using B-52–launched cruise missiles and F-117s, attacking deep in Iraq, achieved total air superiority before the beginning of the coalition ground campaign.

The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 heralded a remarkable American victory in the Cold War. In September 1991, the U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command, long a symbol of superpower tension, stood down from its decades-long, around-the-clock vigil. But the B-52, an abiding symbol of the Cold War, would soldier on, modified and updated. Although they were to be replaced by the Rockwell B-1 Lancer, which has become the mainstay of the U.S. long-range bomber fleet, B-52s continued to be used as of the early 2000s, bombing terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

August 1995 saw a NATO bombing campaign against Bosnian Serbs. Far more dramatic was the 1999 NATO aerial bombing campaign in Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia. Initially, to supporters of air power, this appeared to be, at last, the long-prophesied decisive military campaign won entirely by air power, without the insertion of major ground troops. But enforcing the 1995 Dayton peace accords required American troops on the ground. After the terrorist attack on the United States on 11 September 2001, American bombers struck military targets of the Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The results there, like those in Kosovo, were unusually successful, but it remains to be seen whether the victory of American and NATO air power was a result of unique circumstances—third-rate powers (Serbia and Afghanistan) versus the state-of-the-art precision bombing technology of most of the Free World—or the total victory of air power long prophesied by Douhet, Trenchard, Mitchell, and their supporters.

Bibliography

Atkinson, Rick. Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.

Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the United States Air Force, 1947–1997. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.

Cate, James L. and Wesley F. Craven, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983.

Leyden, Andrew. Gulf War Debriefing Book. Grants Pass, Oreg.: Hellgate Press, 1997.

Sherry, Michael. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.

—Christian Mark De John David MacIsaac

IN BRIEF: A hollow projectile containing an explosive material.

The bomb made a large explosion when it went off.

Tutor's tip: A "bomb bay" is a compartment on a military aircraft, a "bombe" is a round frozen mold filled with ice cream or custard, and a bomb is an explosive device.

A bomb is quite an attention-getter if it goes off in a dream. Perhaps a situation is becoming too explosive and the dreamer needs to tread carefully to avoid "land mines." Alternatively, perhaps the dreamer is so tightly wound because of some situation that he or she feels ready to explode.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - nedbrud
v. tr. - bombe, bombardere
v. intr. - gå ned, crashe

idioms:

• bomb attack    bombardement, bombeangreb
• bomb disposal    bomberydning
• bomb out    udbombe, bombe sønder og sammen
• bomb site    bombetomt
• go like a bomb    køre som en drøm, gå strygende
• put a bomb under something    lægge en bombe under noget

Nederlands (Dutch)
bom, veel geld, brok verharde lava, stickie, flop (theater), spuitbus, bestoken, bombarderen, racen, floppen

Français (French)
n. - bombe, bombe atomique
v. tr. - bombarder
v. intr. - (Comput) avoir une panne, foncer, bomber

idioms:

• bomb attack    attentat à la bombe
• bomb bay    soute à bombes
• bomb disposal    désamorçage, déminage
• bomb out    détruire par un bombardement, (fig) être bondé
• bomb site    champ de bataille, lieu bombardé
• go like a bomb    partir comme une bombe, filer, être un succès
• put a bomb under something    placer une bombe sous qch

Deutsch (German)
n. - Bombe
v. - bombardieren

idioms:

• bomb attack    Bombenanschlag
• bomb bay    Bombenschacht, der
• bomb disposal    Räumung von Bomben
• bomb out    ausbomben
• bomb site    Trümmergrundstück/ -feld
• go like a bomb    ein Bombenerfolg sein
• put a bomb under something    etwas radikal verändern wollen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βόμβα, σφαιρική μάζα λάβας, (καθομ.) (ΗΠΑ) παταγώδης αποτυχία, φιάσκο, τσιγάρο με ναρκωτικό, ανεξήγητο "κρέμασμα" Η/Υ
v. - βομβαρδίζω, (καθομ.) αποτυγχάνω παταγωδώς, πηγαίνω με ταχύτητα, (Η/Υ) "κρεμάω"

idioms:

• bomb attack    βομβιστική επίθεση
• bomb disposal    εξουδετέρωση βομβών ή εκρηκτικών μηχανισμών
• bomb out    εκτοπίζω με βομβαρδισμό
• bomb site    βομβόπληκτη περιοχή
• go like a bomb    δουλεύω, πάω ρολόι
• put a bomb under something    υποσκάπτω, βάζω βόμβα στα θεμέλια

Italiano (Italian)
bombardare, bomba, bomba atomica

idioms:

• bomb disposal    artificieri
• bomb out    radere al suolo
• bomb site    area di bombardamento
• cost a bomb    costa un sacco
• go like a bomb    andare in direttissima
• put a bomb under something    preparare una trappola

Português (Portuguese)
n. - bomba (f)
v. - lançar bombas

idioms:

• bomb disposal    desmontar bomba
• bomb out    bombardear
• bomb site    lugar (m) bombardeado
• cost a bomb    custar muito caro
• go like a bomb    funcionar bem, ir bem
• put a bomb under something    apressar alguém
• time bomb    bomba-relógio (f)

Русский (Russian)
бомбить, бомба, снаряд, фиаско

idioms:

• bomb disposal    разминирование
• bomb out    разбомбить
• bomb site    разбомбленный участок
• cost a bomb    стоить кучу денег
• go like a bomb    (товар) пошел удачно, большой успех
• put a bomb under something    взорвать, подорвать
• time bomb    бомба замедленного действия, мина с часовым механизмом

Español (Spanish)
n. - bomba, bomba atómica, (comp) detención total
v. tr. - bombardear
v. intr. - bombardear, (comp) detenerse totalmente

idioms:

• bomb attack    atentado con bomba
• bomb bay    compartimiento para bombas
• bomb disposal    artificieros
• bomb out    destruir con bombas
• bomb site    sitio bombardeado
• go like a bomb    andar como un rayo, ser todo un éxito
• put a bomb under something    colocar una bomba

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - bomb, atombomb, hårddiskkrasch
v. - krascha hårddisken

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
炸弹, 轰炸, 投弹于, 投弹, 惨败

idioms:

• bomb attack    炸弹攻击
• bomb disposal    未爆弹处理, 废弹处理
• bomb out    被炸掉, 惨败, 失败
• bomb site    被炸的废墟
• go like a bomb    非常成功, 飞驶, 销路极好
• put a bomb under something    催促...

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 炸彈
v. tr. - 轟炸, 投彈於
v. intr. - 轟炸, 投彈, 慘敗

idioms:

• bomb attack    炸彈攻擊
• bomb disposal    未爆彈處理, 廢彈處理
• bomb out    被炸掉, 慘敗, 失敗
• bomb site    被炸的廢墟
• go like a bomb    非常成功, 飛駛, 銷路極好
• put a bomb under something    催促...

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 폭탄, 큰 실수, 분무식 용기, (컴퓨터의) 고장, (컴퓨터의) 폭주
v. tr. - ~에 폭탄을 투하하다
v. intr. - 폭탄을 투하하다, 크게 실패하다, 자폭하다, (컴퓨터가) 고장 나다

idioms:

• bomb out    폭격으로 소실 시키다
• go like a bomb    아주 잘 되어 가다, 상품이 잘 팔리다
• put a bomb under something    빨리 해 주도록 재촉하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 爆弾, 原子爆弾, ボンベ, 突発事件, 大失敗
v. - 爆撃する

idioms:

• bomb disposal    不発爆弾撤去, 不発弾起爆
• bomb out    空襲で追い出す
• bomb site    空襲被災地域
• go like a bomb    大当たりする, よく走る
• put a bomb under something    催促する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) قنبله, فشل فجائي في عمل الكومبيوتر (فعل) فجر, قصف, فشل مفاجىء في عمل الكومبيوتر, فشل ( مسرحي)‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮פצצה, כמות של לבה מוצקה שנזרקה מהר-געש, כישלון רציני (במיוחד בתיאטרון), סיגריה עם סם (מדוברת)‬
v. tr. - ‮הפציץ, הטיל פצצות על, גרש ע"י פצצות‬
v. intr. - ‮הפציץ, הטיל פצצות על, נע במהירות גדולה (מדוברת)‬

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t bomb	Atomic Bomb
bomb	flower bomb