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Definition of bomb verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

bomb

verb
 
/bɒm/
 
/bɑːm/
Verb Forms
present simple I / you / we / they bomb
 
/bɒm/
 
/bɑːm/
he / she / it bombs
 
/bɒmz/
 
/bɑːmz/
past simple bombed
 
/bɒmd/
 
/bɑːmd/
past participle bombed
 
/bɒmd/
 
/bɑːmd/
-ing form bombing
 
/ˈbɒmɪŋ/
 
/ˈbɑːmɪŋ/
Phrasal Verbs
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  1. [transitive] bomb something/somebody to attack something/somebody by leaving a bomb in a place or by dropping bombs from a plane
    • Warplanes bombed targets in and around the capital.
    • They have deliberately bombed civilians.
    • The city was heavily bombed in the war.
    Topics War and conflictb1, Crime and punishmentb1
    Extra Examples
    • The group had planned to bomb several foreign embassies.
    • Fighter jets bombed the road to the airport.
    • Terrorists bombed several army barracks.
    Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb
    • heavily
    • accidentally
    • mistakenly
    See full entry
  2. [intransitive] + adv./prep. (British English, informal) to move very fast, especially in a vehicle, in a particular direction
    • They were bombing down the road at about 80 miles an hour.
  3. [transitive, intransitive] bomb (something) (North American English, informal) to fail a test or an exam very badly
    • The exam was impossible! I definitely bombed it.
    Topics Difficulty and failurec2
  4. [intransitive] (informal) (of a play, show, etc.) to fail very badly
    • His latest musical bombed and lost thousands of dollars.
    Topics Difficulty and failurec2
  5. Word Originlate 17th cent.: from French bombe, from Italian bomba, probably from Latin bombus ‘booming, humming’, from Greek bombos, of imitative origin.
See bomb in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee bomb in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English
previously
adverb
 
 
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B1
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