smoke bomb

plural smoke bombs

1. A firework designed to produce smoke upon ignition.

   It was the morning of the Fourth of July and kids were lighting smoke bombs, sulfurous coils of red and green, the colors dense and bright like concentrated dye blooming through water.

   2013, Rachel Kushner, chapter 11, in The Flamethrowers, New York: Scribner, published 2014, page 56

2. governmentAn explosive or incendiary device designed to emit smoke in order to mark a position or produce a smokescreen.

   Margot would plant smoke-bombs in Kuno’s bedroom and then rush in to rescue him from the fumes.

   1935, Christopher Isherwood, chapter 13, in Mr Norris Changes Trains, Penguin, published 1942, page 147

   3 more examples

   Smoke bombs would be used. The thick fumes resulting from their explosion between the lines would cover our advance.

   1916, Patrick MacGill, chapter 3, in The Great Push: An Episode of the Great War, London: Herbert Jenkins, page 48

   Over every German battery would soar the observation plane indicating by tinsel or smoke bombs the location of the guns […]

   1918, Willis J. Abbot, chapter 9, in Aircraft and Submarines: The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day Uses of War’s Newest Weapons, New York: Putnam

   The agent gave them the two camera-cases you saw. […] He told them that the blue case contained a very powerful smoke-bomb. The red case was the explosive. As one of them threw the red case, the other was to press a switch on the blue case and they would escape under cover of the smoke.

   1953, Ian Fleming, chapter 9, in Casino Royale, London: Jonathan Cape