From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
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]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Bomb \Bomb\, v. t.
To bombard. [Obs.] --Prior.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Bomb \Bomb\, v. i. [Cf. Boom.]
To sound; to boom; to make a humming or buzzing sound. [Obs.]
--B. Jonson.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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.
[1913 Webster]
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]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
bomb
1. <software> 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. <operating system> 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. <software> 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)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
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.