Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Bombing |
BombingNoun1. An attack by dropping bombs. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Slang | Verb. Source: "from bombs droping out of the sky fast, i guess.". Definition: To go really fast down the hill; going straight down the hill in a tuck position with no turns. Context: Used when talking about a run or segment of a run. Social Source: Snowboarders. Source: Compiled by The University of Oregon. (additional references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A bomb is an explosive device, usually some kind of container, filled with explosive material, designed to cause destruction when set off. The explosion of the bomb has to be triggered, usually by a clock, a remote control, or some kind of sensor, usually pressure (altitude), radar, or contact.
Bombs are often used in warfare, and as part of terrorism. The most powerful bomb in existence is the hydrogen bomb, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb is the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst).
- BLU = Bomb/mine Live Unit
- GBU = Guided Bomb Unit
- LGB = Laser Guided Bomb
- C-4 = a variant of plastique explosive
See also
- bomb disposal
- bomb threat
- car bomb
- cluster bomb
- dirty bomb
- gravity bomb
- grenade
- neutron bomb
- pipe bomb
External Link
Much less destructive is a water bomb, a popular children's toy used both for cooling down during hot weather, and for pulling practical jokes.
The term bomb is often used as slang:
- It can be used to mean "really good," as in "It's bomb."" (also: "It's the bomb.") Similarly, it can be used to label something as being expensive, implying that expensive goods are of high quality.
- Bomb is also used in the sense of "going very quickly," as in "bombing along."
- The term old bomb is used to refer to an old automobile in very poor condition.
- Someone who tries and fails spectacularly at a task is often said to have bombed out; for example, a comedian who tells a joke which falls flat says that joke bombed.
- A motion picture or theatrical production which is a financial failure is often described as a bomb. Alternatively, some people use the term bomb to refer instead to films of particularly bad quality, irrelevent of financial concerns. In seeming contradiction to this, a blockbuster motion picture is a great financial success.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bomb."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The bombing of Dresden in World War II by the Allies remains controversial after more than 50 years. Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, was fire-bombed by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) over three days (February 13-15, 1945) near the end of World War II. Air Marshall Arthur Harris, inventor of area bombing, ordered the action. He was never held accountable for this alleged war crime.
85% of Dresden was destroyed
Reasons for the attack
Dresden was widely considered a city of little war-related industrial or strategic importance, though, after the fact, in his memoirs Winston Churchill described it as a "centre of communications of Germany's Eastern Front." Dresden itself was most noted as a cultural centre, with noted architecture in the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House and its historic cathedral (the Frauenkirche) and other churches. It was also called "Elbflorenz", i.e. Florence of the Elbe, due to its stunning beauty. It has been claimed that the bombing was at the request of the Soviet Union, to attack a German armoured division in transit through the city. However, RAF briefing notes indicate that one of the motives was to show "the Russians when they arrive, what Bomber Command can do" (that is, to intimidate the Soviets).At the time, the city was cramped full of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. Dresden, having been spared from previous attacks, was considered to be very safe. Bomber Command was ordered to attack Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and other east German cities to "cause confusion in the evacuation from the east" and "hamper the movements of troops from the west". This directive led to the raid on Dresden and marked the erosion of one last moral restriction in the bombing war: the term "evacuation from the east" did not refer to retreating troops but to the civilian refugees fleeing from the advancing Soviet troops. Although these refugees clearly did not contribute to the German war effort, they were considered legitimate targets simply because the chaos caused by attacks on them might obstruct German troop reinforcements to the Eastern Front. There are eyewitness-reports that even civilians fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden in February 1945 were strafed by British and American aircraft, though it is doubted [1].
Nature of the attack
The fire-bombing consisted of dropping large amounts of high-explosive to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining 'fire storm' with temperatures peaking at over 1500 °C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.3,907 tons of bombs were dropped. Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area of 15 square kilometers was totally destroyed, among that: 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 19 churches, 5 theaters, 50 bank and insurance companies, 31 department stores, 31 large hotels, and 62 administration buildings.
Impact of the attack
The precise number of dead is difficult to ascertain and is not known. Estimates vary from 35,000 to 135,000 dead. Such estimates are made very difficult by the fact that the city was crowded at that time by many unregistered refugees and wounded soldiers. The foreign slave workers may represent a large number of dead, since they were usually employed in the squads to fight fires storms. (In comparison, some 100,000 died in the bombing of Hiroshima, about 50,000 in the bombing of Nagasaki and 100,000 in the bombing of Tokyo and 200,000 were killed in Warsaw during the Warsaw uprising 1944.) There have been larger estimates for the number of dead, ranging as high as a quarter of a million, but they are from disputed sources, such as the Nazi Propaganda Ministry and Holocaust denier David Irving. The Nazis made use of Dresden in their propaganda and promised swift retaliation.
Dresden compared with other bombing targets in Germany
This destruction is not out of line with the destruction of other German cities and the tonnage of bombs dropped was lower than that used on many other cities. The US Strategic Bombing Survey says nothing about Dresden but says "On three nights in late July and early August 1943 it struck Hamburg in perhaps the most devastating single city attack of the war — about one third of the houses of the city were destroyed and German estimates show 60,000 to 100,000 people killed. No subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication from interrogation of high officials that Hitler himself thought that further attacks of similar weight might force Germany out of the war. The RAF proceeded to destroy one major urban center after another. Except in the extreme eastern part of the Reich, there is no major city that does not bear the mark of these attacks. However, no subsequent attack had the shock effect of the Hamburg raid."
Was the Dresden bombing justified?
The Dresden bombing is a strongly debated decision, and the action is still widely perceived as lacking military justification, even within the context of the controversial area bombing policy pursued against Germany by Britain's Bomber Command in 1942-1945. The city has never regained its pre-war population of 630,000.One popular charge against the bombing is that the city was not a military target. However, other evidence suggests otherwise; The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights). The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radars and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters. After the attack, Germany was to claim that Dresden's industry was only making civil goods, a notion which much of the world accepted, and still accepts, as true.
Allied experiences of the attack
There are anecdotes of the pilots and crew having problems years later. Some had nightmares, some thought they would go to hell as war criminals, some had unshakable visions of the fires and the burning cities. Many other veterans, however, doubt these anecdotes, noting that their briefings included details on what they were hitting, and that no one in their recollection had any misgivings about the mission.Author Kurt Vonnegut had been captured during the Battle of the Bulge and was a prisoner of war near Dresden during the bombing. He later wrote about his experiences and feelings in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
Post-war: reconstruction and reconciliation
After the war great efforts were made to rebuild some of Dresden's former landmarks, such as the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper or the Zwinger. Despite its location in the Soviet occupation zone (subsequently the DDR), in 1956 Dresden entered a twinning relationship with Coventry, which had suffered the worst destruction of any English city at the hands of the Luftwaffe earlier in the war, including the destruction of its cathedral. Groups from both cities were involved in moving demonstrations of post-war reconciliation.External link and references
- USAF Historical Division review of Dresen bombing
- Alan Forbes on wartime atrocities, Boston Review, October/November 1995
- Reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden
- Horrific fire-bombing images published, BBC News
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bombing of Dresden in World War II."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| BOMB | English | Bombing | Transportation |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: BombingSynonym: bombardment (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Bombing |
| English words defined with "bombing": air-raid shelter ♦ bomb shelter, Bomber Harris, bombproof ♦ cease, collateral, cut across ♦ dive-bombing ♦ end ♦ Harris ♦ loft bombing ♦ military mission, mission ♦ over-the-shoulder bombing ♦ shock, Sir Arthur Travers Harris, sporadic, strategic ♦ terminate, toss bombing. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "bombing": automatic toss ♦ bomb sighting systems ♦ dive bombing ♦ Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer ♦ H2S ♦ low angle loft bombing ♦ preassault operation ♦ sighting angle. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I'm just gonna go bombing around in it. (GoldenEye; writing credit: Ian Fleming; Michael France) Unrestricted submarine warfare, bombing of civilians, poison gas. Ask your wife -- she's a nurse (The Blue Max; writing credit: Jack Hunter; Ben Barzman) We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours (Airplane!; writing credit: Jim Abrahams; David Zucker) You commented on Nazi methods, foul fighting, bombing refugees, machine-gunning hospitals, lifeboats, lightships, bailed-out pilots, by saying that you despised them, that you would be ashamed to fight on their side and that you would sooner accept defeat than victory if it could only be won by those methods (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; writing credit: Michael Powell; Emeric Pressburger) He's bombing London as I speak (RKO 281; writing credit: Richard Ben Cramer; Thomas Lennon) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Enola Gay and the Atomic Bombing of Japan (1995) Part 2: Setting Up for Bombing Operation of C-1 Autopilot (1943) Dive Bombing (1943) Norman Alley's Bombing of the U.S.S. Panay (1937) Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing (1997) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Theater & Movies |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Relief map of Truk Island developed to guide bombing missions Work of Roswell Bolstad while Marine intelligence officer. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |  | Coast and Geodetic Survey Ship COWIE. This vessel was named in honor of Commander George D. Cowie, former head of the Philippine Coast Survey, who was killed in a Japanese bombing raid on Manila in late 1941. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
 | B-1 bombing mission. |  | An 8th Air Force B-17 makes a bombing run over Marienburg, Germany, in 1943. The date and photographer are not known. (Army Air Forces photo). |
 | U. S. Army Base Hospital Number 3, Vauclaire, France. : Hospital barracks. Effects of bombing. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | [Radiation - Effects] : [Hospital after bombing.]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | At Tjilatjap, Java, after she had been damaged by Japanese high-level bombing attack in the Java Sea on 4 February 1942. This view shows the effect of an enemy bomb which struck her stern. Her after 6"/53 gun turret is at left. Note the blanked off portholes on her hull side. Credit: NAVY. |  | Under repair at the New York Navy Yard, circa June 1942, after she had been damaged by Japanese high-level bombing attack in the Java sea on 4 February 1942. This view shows new deck plating on the cruiser's stern. Her after 6"/53 gun turret is in the center. Credit: NAVY. |
 | Tokyo bombing. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Bombing Hanoi. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Chairs @ Oklahoma City Bombing" by Mike Swope Commentary: "Chairs representing the men and women who died in the Oklahoma City federal building from the bomb ignited by Terry Nichols." | "Galata Tower in Black & White" by William J. Ray Commentary: "Taken from right in front of the largest Synagogue in Turkey --recently the target of a terrorist bombing." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Zimbabwe | An Associated Press photographer was arrested in connection with the bombing. (references) |
Kenya | Muslim leaders claim that since the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, government discrimination against their community has worsened. (references) | |
Mauritania | In October the Government refused a permit for a demonstration by opponents of U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and the Government's policy of maintaining full relations with Israel. (references) | |
Economic History | Yemen | The Yemeni and U.S. governments are cooperating in the investigation into the bombing. (references) |
Sri Lanka | In June 2000, the LTTE assassinated the Industrial Development Minister by suicide bombing. (references) | |
China | Soon after the bombing, government-controlled press discouraged protests or acts of violence against foreign investors. (references) | |
Human Rights | Peru | The May 16 bombing was the first in downtown Lima in several years. (references) |
Sri Lanka | The security forces use aerial observation for selecting targets for shelling and bombing. (references) | |
Afghanistan | In February 2000, indiscriminate bombing by the Taliban in the Panjshir valley killed eight civilians. (references) | |
Minorities | Indonesia | Police accused 13 persons whom police arrested in September in connection with a mall bombing. (references) |
Argentina | The investigation into the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires has come to a virtual standstill. (references) | |
Tajikistan | The students confessed to the bombing and said that their motive was religious; however, they were not known to have any ties with extremist groups. (references) | |
Political Economy | Sudan | Government bombing campaigns continued in the south at year's end. (references) |
Sudan | In June 10 persons were killed in government bombing raids ostensibly to liberate the southern town of Raga, which was controlled by the SPLA. (references) | |
Yugoslavia | While damage to infrastructure and to the refineries from NATO's bombing in 1999 gradually was being repaired, transportation within and through Serbia remained a problem. (references) | |
Political Rights | Uzbekistan | Solikh was 1 of the 9 defendants-in-absentia in the November show trial of 12 alleged bombing conspirators. (references) |
Travel | Spain | The only American casualty due to terrorism in Spain was a chance victim of a bombing directed at others. (references) |
Russia | Anti-American demonstrations during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia briefly affected Embassy services. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Colombia | According to the ENS, there have been 14 bombing attempts against union offices in the last 4 years. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dan Rather | In Jerusalem tonight, right at the dividing line between the Israeli west and the mostly Arab east Jerusalem, yet another suicide bombing. We had driven by only minutes before the bomb went off. |
Dennis Miller | I guess my main objection to suicide bombing is how commercial its all gotten. |
Lowell Bergman | Well, we initially did a documentary two and a half years ago after the Nairobi bombing. And that looked for, in a sense, the reasons behind it. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Richard Nixon | 1969-1974 | At the time of the bombing halt just a year ago, there was some confusion as to whether there was an understanding on the part of the enemy that if we stopped the bombing of North Vietnam they would stop the shelling of cities in South Vietnam. |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | The bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania reminds us again of the risks faced every day by those who represent America to the world. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Bombing" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 49.90% of the time. "Bombing" is used about 518 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 49.9% | 259 | 18,370 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 38.34% | 199 | 21,651 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 9.63% | 50 | 48,117 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.93% | 10 | 111,207 |
| Noun (common) | 0.19% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 518 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "bombing": area bombing ♦ blind bombing zone ♦ bombing angle ♦ bombing attack ♦ bombing errors ♦ bombing halt ♦ bombing height ♦ bombing raid ♦ bombing run ♦ bombing squadron ♦ carpet bombing ♦ dive bombing ♦ lay down bombing ♦ loft bombing ♦ low angle loft bombing ♦ multiple bombing ♦ napalm bombing ♦ offset bombing ♦ pattern bombing ♦ precision bombing ♦ salvo bombing ♦ saturation bombing ♦ toss bombing ♦ volley bombing. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "bombing": bombing-raids, bombing-range. | |
Ending with "bombing": fire-bombing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "bombing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | bombardim (bombardment, pelt, prang). (various references) | |
Arabic | قصف (bombard, bombardment, cannon, feast, hilarity, orgy, peal, revel, revelry, romp, shell, shelling), قذف بالقنابل (bomb, bombarding, bombardment). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | бомбардировка (air raid), бомбардиране (bombardment, shelling). (various references) | |
Chinese | 轰炸. (various references) | |
Czech | bombardování (bombardment). (various references) | |
Danish | bombenedkastning under opretning efter styrtdykning (loft bombing, toss bombing), bombeafleveringsafvigelser (bombing errors), blindbombning (blind bombing), styrtbombning (dive bombing), slyngbombning med lille kastevinkel (low angle loft bombing). (various references) | |
Dutch | bombarderen van onziehtbare doelen (blind bombing), opdekbombardement (loft bombing, toss bombing), duikbombardement (dive bombing). (various references) | |
Finnish | pommitus (bombardment, shelling). (various references) | |
French | bombardement (bomb, bombardment). (various references) | |
German | Bombenabwurf (BOMB). (various references) | |
Greek | βομβιστική επίθεση (bomb attack), βομβαρδισμός (bombardment). (various references) | |
Hebrew | הפצצה (bombardment, shelling). (various references) | |
Hungarian | bombázás (bombardment, shell fire, shelling, strafe). (various references) | |
Indonesian | pengeboman, pemboman. (various references) | |
Italian | bombardamento (bombardment, cannonade, shellfire, shelling). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 爆撃 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ばくげき (cordial relations). (various references) | |
Korean | 폭격. (various references) | |
Manx | bleaystanys (bombardment, shelling). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ombingbay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | bombardeio (cannonade, shelling), lançamento de bombas. (various references) | |
Romanian | bombardare (bombardment). (various references) | |
Russian | бомбометание. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | bombardovnje. (various references) | |
Spanish | bombardeo (barrage, bombardment, bomber, pounding, raid, shellfire, shelling). (various references) | |
Swedish | bombning. (various references) | |
Thai | การทิ้งระเบิด. (various references) | |
Turkish | bombalama (bombardment, shelling, strafing). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | метання ручних гранат, бомбардування (bombardment). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "bombing": bombings. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "bombing": divebombing, firebombing, mailbombing. (additional references) | |
| |
"Bombing" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Bambang, bobina, broming, bubinga, bumbag, omming. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "bombing" (pronounced bÄ"ming) |
| 5 | b Ä" m i ng | embalming. |
| 4 | -Ä" m i ng | calming. |
| 3 | -m i ng | acclaiming, affirming, aiming, alarming, arming, assuming, barnstorming, beaming, becoming, blaming, blooming, blossoming, booming, bottoming, brainstorming, brimming, charming, claiming, climbing, combing, coming, condemning, confirming, conforming, consuming, cramming, damming, damning, daydreaming, deprogramming, diagraming, dimming, disarming, disclaiming, dooming, dreaming, drumming, dumbing, exclaiming, farming, filming, firebombing, firming, flaming, foaming, forming, forthcoming, framing, fuming, gaming, gleaming, gloaming, grooming, harming, heartwarming, helming, hemming, homecoming, homing, humming, incoming, inflaming, informing, jamming, lambing, lemming, liming, looming, maiming, mainstreaming, misinforming, mushrooming, naming, nonperforming, numbing, oncoming, outperforming, overcoming, overwhelming, performing, plumbing, presuming, priming, proclaiming, programing, programming, ramming, reaffirming, rearming, reclaiming, redeeming, reforming, renaming, reprogramming, resuming, rhyming, roaming, rooming, scheming, screaming, seeming, shaming, shortcoming, skimming, slamming, slimming, squirming, steaming, stemming, storming, streaming, strumming, succumbing, summing, swarming, swimming, taming, teaming, teeming, terming, thumbing, timing, transforming, trimming, unassuming, unbecoming, upcoming, vacuuming, warming, welcoming, zooming. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: mobbing. | |
| Words within the letters "b-b-g-i-m-n-o" | |
-1 letter: gibbon. | |
-2 letters: bimbo, bingo, boing. | |
-3 letters: bomb, bong. | |
-4 letters: bib, big, bin, bio, bob, bog, gib, gin, gob, ion, mib, mig, mob, mog, mon, nib, nim, nob, nog, nom, obi. | |
-5 letters: bi, bo, go, in, mi, mo, no, om, on. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-b-g-i-m-n-o" | |
+1 letter: bombings. | |
+2 letters: demobbing. | |
+3 letters: bombarding. | |
+4 letters: bamboozling, bombinating, divebombing, firebombing, mailbombing, thingamabob. | |
+5 letters: beachcombing, thingamabobs. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Quotations: Speeches 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Abbreviations | 17. Acronyms 18. Derivations 19. Rhymes 20. Anagrams | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
