bombard

• Verb:
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌbɒmˈbɑːd/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /ˌbɑmˈbɑɹd/, /bəmˈbɑɹd/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Noun:
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɒmˌbɑːd/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑmˌbɑɹd/

From Middle English bombard, from Middle French bombarde (“a bombard, mortar, catapult"; also "a bassoon-like musical instrument”), from Latin bombus (“buzzing; booming”).

The modern pronunciation is from modern French bombarde.

bombard (plural bombards)

1. A medieval primitive cannon, used chiefly in sieges for throwing heavy stone balls.
   • 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, , London: Adam Islip, →OCLC:

     They planted in divers places twelve great bombards, wherewith they threw huge stones into the air, which, falling down into the city, might break down the houses.

2. (obsolete) A bassoon-like medieval musical instrument.
3. (obsolete) A large liquor container made of leather, in the form of a jug or a bottle.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     […] yond same black cloud, yond huge one, / looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor.

4. (poetic, rare) A bombardment.
   • 1807, Joel Barlow, The Columbiad:

     With mines and parallels contracts the space;
     Then bids the battering floats his labors crown
     And pour their bombard on the shuddering town

5. (music) A bombardon.

From French bombarder, from Middle French bombarde (“a bombard”).

bombard (third-person singular simple present bombards, present participle bombarding, simple past and past participle bombarded)

1. To continuously attack something with bombs, artillery shells or other missiles or projectiles.

   The enemy's stronghold was bombarded for 3 hours straight.

2. (figuratively) To attack something or someone by directing objects at them.
3. (figuratively) To continuously send or direct (at someone)

   I was bombarded with WhatsApp messages after appearing on the news.

   Please don't bombard me with questions right now, I'll answer them at the end of the statement.

   • 1945, Morton Thompson, Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player, page 88:

     At this point she remembered, sitting there, surrounded by heavy breathing, the constellations flashing, cosmic rays bombarding marvelsome complex coils on the lecturer's dials, that she had forgotten to turn out the gas under the beets.

   • 2002 December 11, Nick Bradshaw, “One day in September”, in Time Out, page 71:

     We're so bombarded with images, it's a struggle to preserve our imaginations.' In response, he's turned to cinema, commissioning 11 film-makers to contribute to a portmanteau film, entitled '11'09"01' and composed of short films each running 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame.

4. (physics) To direct at a substance an intense stream of high-energy particles, usually sub-atomic or made of at most a few atoms.

• bomb

• bumbard

From Middle French bombarde.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbumbard/

bombard (plural bombardes)

1. (Late Middle English) cannon, bombard

• English: bombard
• Scots: bombard

• “bǒmbard, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.