booming

1. 1
   adjective

   Loud and deep, with a resonant quality that carries and echoes through a space.

   A booming laugh carried across the crowded restaurant.

   The organ produced a booming tone that filled the cathedral.

   Similarresonant, thunderous, resounding, sonorous

   Oppositesoft, quiet, faint

2. 2
   adjective

   Going through a period of prosperity or rapid economic growth.

   The housing market was booming long before the crash.

   Tech startups are booming across the region right now.

   Similarthriving, flourishing, buoyant

   Oppositestagnant, depressed

3. 3
   adjective

   Delivered with aggressive, blaring loudness that overrides everything around it.

   Booming chants from the stadium reached the parking lots blocks away.

   The protester's booming demands cut through the noise of the crowd.

   Similarthunderous, deafening, loud

   Oppositequiet, soft, muted

   Note

   Here the loudness is a weapon, not a gift. A voice that is booming in the resonant sense can be an asset, reason enough to ask someone to host an event. This sense sits closer to blaring and vociferous: sound meant to shout others down. William Davies reaches for it in 2025, writing about the politics of Trump's second term.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of boom.

   Thunder kept booming over the valley for an hour.

   The export sector was booming throughout that decade.

   Note

   Every meaning of the verb boom passes through this form: thunder booming, an orator booming a command, an animal booming its territorial call, a market booming. That last use makes it easy to confuse with the prosperity adjective. The test is degree. The adjective takes more booming and most booming. The participle follows be in a progressive, or works as a gerund naming the act itself.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   A deep, hollow sound or a long, rolling roar.

   A distant booming announced the start of the artillery drill.

   The booming of the foghorn reached the boats far out at sea.

   Similarrumbling, roar, thundering

   Note

   A noun that takes a plural freely: Felicia Hemans writes of the heavy boomings of a dull deep bell in The Forest Sanctuary (1825). The other common frame is the booming of…, which names the sound by its source, as in the booming of powerful stereo systems. The plural suggests separate strokes. The booming suggests one continuous roll.

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