Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Bomb
/bɒm/noun
A container of explosive built to detonate on impact or on a timer.
The Greek roots
βόμβος
bómbos
booming, humming sound
Literally: “a booming noise”
Follow a root:βόμβος1 word
The story of the word
The Greek word imitates a sound, the drone of bees or the low note of a pipe; Greeks had no explosives to name. Latin bombus went into Italian as bomba for the noise a mortar shell makes, and French and English took the weapon with the sound still attached to it. Bombastic is unrelated, from bombax, cotton padding, though the confusion has helped it survive. The bumblebee, once a humblebee, was named the same way.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
bombardbombardierbombardment
In a sentence
The bomb went off in an empty street at four in the morning.
The play was a bomb in London and a hit in Dublin.