bomb
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bomb", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bomb" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bomb" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bomb is aEnglishnoun. It means: An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft. Pronounced /bɒm/. It ranks #2,475 in English word frequency. Often confused with boy and box.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bomb |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɒm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,475 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bomb is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɒm/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,475 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 29 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for bomb, with forms such as "bbomb", "bmob", and "bobm". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "boy", "box", "bow", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French bombe, from Italian bomba, from Latin bombus (“a booming sound”), from Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos, “booming, humming, buzzing”), imitative of the sound itself. Doublet of bombe. Compare boom. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bomb, spelled B-O-M-B, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 2An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 3An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 4An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 5An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 6An explosive device used or intended as a weapon, especially, one dropped from an aircraft.
- 7Any explosive charge.
- 8A bag or balloon containing a substance such as water, flour, or paint, designed to burst and splatter.
- 9Anything that is at risk of exploding (literally) or that has exploded.
- 10A fart.
- 11A failure; an unpopular commercial product.
- 12A car in poor condition.
- 13A large amount of money.
- 14Something highly effective or attractive.
- 15Something highly effective or attractive.
- 16Something highly effective or attractive.
- 17Something highly effective or attractive.
- 18Something highly effective or attractive.
- 19Something highly effective or attractive.
- 20Something highly effective or attractive.
- 21Something highly effective or attractive.
- 22Something highly effective or attractive.
- 23A cyclone whose central pressure drops at an average rate of at least one millibar per hour for at least 24 hours.
- 24A heavy-walled container designed to permit chemical reactions under high pressure.
- 25A great booming noise; a hollow sound.
- 26A woman’s breast.
- 27A professional wrestling throw in which an opponent is lifted and then slammed back-first down to the mat.
- 28A recreational drug ground up, wrapped, and swallowed.
- 29An act of jumping into water while keeping one's arms and legs tucked into the body, as in a squatting position, to maximize splashing.
Etymology
From French bombe, from Italian bomba, from Latin bombus (“a booming sound”), from Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos, “booming, humming, buzzing”), imitative of the sound itself. Doublet of bombe. Compare boom.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbomb,bmob,bobm,bombb,bommb,obmb
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bomb
Misspelling Variants of "bomb"
Frequency rank: #2,475 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: