bomber

plural bombers

1. aeronauticsA military aircraft designed to carry and drop bombs.

   As many as 100,000 Japanese people were killed and another million injured, most of them civilians, when more than 300 American B-29 bombers dropped 1,500 tons of firebombs on the Japanese capital that night.

   2020 March 7, Brad Lendon and Emiko Jozuka, “History’s deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II and you’ve probably never heard of it”, in CNN

   1 more example

   B-2 bombers are the only plane capable of carrying the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which experts have highlighted as the only type of bomb potentially capable of destroying Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility. Each B-2 bomber is able to carry two of these “bunker buster” bombs, which weigh an impressive 30,000 pounds each.

   2025 June 21, Thomas Bordeaux, Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen, “US moves B-2 bombers as Trump weighs Iran options”, in CNN

2. A person who sets bombs, especially as an act of terrorism.

   The nail bomber who killed three people and injured dozens of others in a terrifying campaign last spring told police he was a homophobic Nazi, and that he hoped the explosions would "set fire to the country and stir up a racial war", the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

   2000 June 6, Nick Hopkins, “The bomber who tried to unleash a race war”, in The Guardian

3. abbreviationellipsisbusinessEllipsis of bomber jacket.

   First singer and guitarist Marcus Mumford, wearing a black suit, then bassist Ted Dwane, in leather bomber and T-shirt.[…]

   2012 November 15, Tom Lamont, “How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world”, in The Guardian

   1 more example

   A few years ago, the leather bomber was a gold mine for retailers and a gravy train for vendors. Consumers were crazy for them.

   1991 March 18, Jeff Black, “The Bomber Jacket Is Taking Lots of Flak”, in DNR, volume 21, number 53, →ISSN, page 13

4. USslangA 22-ounce beer bottle.
5. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of graffiti bomber.

   To bomb the system is to saturate MTA subway cars with one's signatures. ln the 1980s, certain writers were identified as bombers because they had mastered all disciplines of the form: insides, throw-ups, window-downs, top-to-bottoms, […]

   2002, Ivor Miller, Aerosol kingdom: subway painters of New York City, page 195

6. slangA large cannabis cigarette.

   That night, I swallowed the last of my pain pills, smoked a bomber, and let the drugs carry me away.

   2017, Thomas Conrad, The Reunion

   1 more example

   In Canada, marihuana cigarettes rarely contain any tobacco, and may vary in size from a few hundred milligrams up to a several gram "bomber."

   2011, Vera Rubin, Cannabis and Culture, page 510

   Synonyms: bifta, bifter, blunt, bogie, bone, bun, Camberwell carrot, doink

comparative more bomber · superlative most bomber

1. slangclimbingCompletely solid and secure, usually referring to some form of protective gear.