[syn: fail, flunk, bomb, flush it]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Bomb \Bomb\, v. t.
To bombard. [Obs.] --Prior.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Bomb \Bomb\, v. i. [Cf. Boom.]
To sound; to boom; to make a humming or buzzing sound. [Obs.]
--B. Jonson.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Bomb \Bomb\, n. [F. bombe bombshell, fr. L. bombus a humming or
buzzing noise, Gr. ?.]
[1913 Webster]
1. A great noise; a hollow sound. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
A pillar of iron . . . which if you had struck,
would make . . . a great bomb in the chamber
beneath. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Mil.) A shell; esp. a spherical shell, like those fired
from mortars. See Shell.
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3. A bomb ketch.
[1913 Webster]
Bomb chest (Mil.), a chest filled with bombs, or only with
gunpowder, placed under ground, to cause destruction by
its explosion.
Bomb ketch, Bomb vessel (Naut.), a small ketch or vessel,
very strongly built, on which mortars are mounted to be
used in naval bombardments; -- called also mortar
vessel.
Bomb lance, a lance or harpoon with an explosive head, used
in whale fishing.
Volcanic bomb, a mass of lava of a spherical or pear shape.
"I noticed volcanic bombs." --Darwin.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
bomb
n 1: an explosive device fused to explode under specific
conditions
2: strong sealed vessel for measuring heat of combustion [syn:
bomb calorimeter, bomb]
3: an event that fails badly or is totally ineffectual; "the
first experiment was a real turkey"; "the meeting was a dud
as far as new business was concerned" [syn: turkey, bomb,
dud]
v 1: throw bombs at or attack with bombs; "The Americans bombed
Dresden" [syn: bombard, bomb]
2: fail to get a passing grade; "She studied hard but failed
nevertheless"; "Did I fail the test?" [syn: fail, flunk,
bomb, flush it] [ant: make it, pass]
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 January 2023):
bomb
1. General synonym for crash except that it is
not used as a noun. Especially used of software or OS
failures. "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll
bomb".
2. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents
of a Unix "panic" or Amiga guru, in which icons of
little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed,
indicating that the system has died. On the Macintosh, this
may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally
hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to
the Amiga guru meditation number. MS-DOS computers tend
to lock up in this situation.
3. A piece of code embedded in a program that
remains dormant until it is triggered. Logic bombs are
triggered by an event whereas time bombs are triggered either
after a set amount of time has elapsed, or when a specific
date is reached.
[Jargon File]
(1996-12-08)
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
bomb
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.