time bomb
"time-bomb" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“time bomb” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A bomb that has a mechanism such that detonation can be preset to a particular time.
Corpus desk
Index EN-time-bomb · time bomb · English
time bomb · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | time bomb |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “time bomb” in English
Rare enough to double-check
time bomb is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
time bomb doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From time + bomb. The correct English form is time bomb, spelled T-I-M-E- -B-O-M-B.
Definition
- 1A bomb that has a mechanism such that detonation can be preset to a particular time.
- 2A malicious program designed to perform a destructive action at a certain date or time.
- 3A situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how time bomb appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
At 9.40 a.m. on Bank Holiday Monday, August 5, a ganger found what was thought to be a time bomb at a level crossing at Tempsford, near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, […] Inside one box was a brick; the other contained the works of an old alarm clock.
Donald Gene Burleson was prosecuted on felony charges for planting a time bomb that, shortly after he was fired, deleted more than 168,000 brokerage records of USPA & IRA in Fort Worth, Texas.
Etymology
From time + bomb.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.