A bomb is a weapon that explodes, causing damage with a blast and sometimes fire or shrapnel.
It comes from French “bombe,” from Italian “bomba,” likely imitating the sound of a deep boom. The word spread across Europe with the development of explosive artillery.
We’ve turned this deadly word into slang in opposite ways: a “bomb” can be something amazing (“That song is the bomb”) or a complete failure (“The show bombed”). Context flips the emotional charge of the word almost completely.
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