bombing

Pluralbombings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   The deliberate placing and setting off of bombs to cause destruction or harm.

   The café bombing killed three people and injured dozens more.

   Investigators traced the bombing to a single homemade device left under a bench.

   Similarattack, blast, explosion

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of dropping bombs from aircraft onto targets on the ground.

   Aerial bombing reduced much of the factory district to rubble.

   The bombing raids over the capital continued for months.

   Similarbombardment, blitz

   Note

   The article decides how this word counts. Without one, bombing names the activity as a whole: years of bombing, aerial bombing. With one, a bombing is a single attack, and bombings counts them. The bombs here fall from aircraft. When a device is planted and set off on the ground, the same word shifts to the planted-device meaning, and the surrounding context is usually what tells the two apart.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bomb.

   Enemy aircraft were bombing the harbor at dawn.

   Bombing the dam would flood the entire valley below.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it makes the progressive (were bombing the harbor), and on its own it names the action as a verbal noun (bombing the dam). It carries every sense of the verb, not only attack. Informally, bombing down the highway means moving fast, and bombing into a pool means jumping in tucked for the biggest splash. Unlike the air-raid noun, it takes a direct object and has no plural.

   We went bombing down the highway with the windows open.

   The kids spent the afternoon bombing into the deep end.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The practice of wrapping a recreational drug in a covering and then swallowing it whole.

   Among users, bombing is favored for getting the dose down fast without the bitter taste.

   She avoided bombing because the wrapper sometimes stuck in her throat.

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