bomb out

present singular third person bombs out · participle present bombing out · participle past bombed out · past bombed out

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo fail; to produce no or very poor results; to drop out of or be eliminated from a competition.

   Jane Fonda may be a hit at the box office, but she is bombing out politically.

   1979 August 2, “Jane Fonda bombs out in the political arena”, in Deseret News, USA, retrieved 17 Jul 2011, page 3A

   2 more examples

   The excitement along TV row this time of year generally is confined to the new season's shows—how many will hit or how many will bomb out?

   1966 Aug. 30, "Survivors Gird for New Season," Los Angeles Times, part IV p. 1 (retrieved 17 July 2011)

   Brazil started as favourites and as luck would have it, they bombed out in the quarterfinals.

   2009 December 2, Mninawa Ntloko, “Parreira's Loyalty is to Brazil”, in allAfrica.com, retrieved 17 Jul 2011

2. transitiveTo remove or cause (someone) to be removed or ejected from something.
3. slangtransitiveTo destroy completely or kill with explosives.
4. intransitiveslangTo do badly on a test or examination.