blimp

plural blimps

1. aeronauticsAn airship constructed with a nonrigid lifting agent container.

   2004 February 16&23, The New Yorker

   Synonyms: barrage balloon, Gossage, nonrigid

2. broadlyAny large airborne inflatable.

   a 6 meter high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies

   2018 July 14, “Trump baby balloon: giant blimp takes to the sky above Edinburgh after being transported from London”, in Evening Standard

3. slangAn obese person.
4. A person similar to the cartoon character Colonel Blimp; a pompous, reactionary British man.
5. broadcastingA soundproof cover for a video camera.

   You can create your own blimp or barney with anything that will deaden the camera noise, such as a changing bag, foam rubber, […]

   2015, Peter W. Rea, David K. Irving, Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, page 209

   Synonyms: barney

present singular third person blimps · participle present blimping · participle past blimped · past blimped

1. intransitiveslangTo expand like a blimp or balloon; to become fat.

   Over a few years the software had blimped into typical bloatware.

   1 more example

   After college, she started blimping and could no longer wear her favorite little black dress.

   Synonyms: blimp out, blimp up

2. transitiveTo fit (a video camera) with a soundproof cover.

plural Blimps

1. humorousA person considered similar to Colonel Blimp in appearance, thought, or expression, particularly (historical or archaic, derogatory) a reactionary middle-class Englishman during the Interwar Period.

   One was the military and imperialist middle class, generally nicknamed the Blimps, and the other the left-wing intelligentsia.

   1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, Part I