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blimp love

blimp

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A nonrigid, buoyant airship.
  • noun Derogatory An obese person.
  • intransitive verb Slang To become very fat. Often used with out:

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun any elderly pompous reactionary.
  • noun a small nonrigid airship used for observation or as a barrage balloon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An airship constructed with a non-rigid lifting agent container.
  • noun slang An obese person.
  • noun A person similar to the cartoon character Colonel Blimp; a pompous, reactionary British man.
  • verb To expand like a blimp or balloon; to become fat.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any elderly pompous reactionary ultranationalistic person (after the cartoon character created by Sir David Low)
  • noun a small nonrigid airship used for observation or as a barrage balloon

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly imitative of the sound made by tapping the finger against the envelope of the airship.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin not entirely certain, however most historians believe that it is onomatopoeia for the sound a blimp makes when thumped. Although there is some disagreement among historians, credit for coining the term is usually given to Lt. A.D. Conningham of the British Royal Navy in 1915.

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Examples

Comments

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  • chained_bear commented on the word blimp

    I cannot believe this isn't already on one of my lists.

    October 16, 2007

  • skipvia commented on the word blimp

    Can't encounter this word without thinking about this one:

    "Look up in the sky there's uh dirigible there!

    The drazy hoops whir!

    You can see them just as they were.

    All the people stir

    'n the girls' knees trembles

    'n run 'n wave their hands

    'n run their hands over the blimp the blimp.

    Daughter don't yuh dare

    Oh momma who cares?

    It's the blimp, it's the blimp!"

    October 16, 2007

  • reesetee commented on the word blimp

    Captain Beefheart!

    The mother ship the mother ship

    The mother ship's the one

    October 16, 2007

  • skipvia commented on the word blimp

    Wow! I didn't think anyone would get this one. My virtual fedora is tipped to you, reesetee.

    October 16, 2007

  • reesetee commented on the word blimp

    Back atcha. :-)

    October 16, 2007

  • hernesheir commented on the word blimp

    (n): in cinematography, a fiberglass housing used to encase a noisy camera to make it suitable for syncronized sound filming.

    January 17, 2009

  • bilby commented on the word blimp

    "The folks at Turtle Airships don’t like calling their aircraft a blimp: 'It is a rigid shelled, amphibious, solar powered, all weather, FAST aircraft that is lifted by helium, but it is not a blimp.'"

    - Bryan Nelson, Solar Blimp to Fly from NYC to Paris, Rests on Land or Water, cleantechnica.com, 28 July 2009.

    August 4, 2009

  • john commented on the word blimp

    “18.182 What is a blimp?—A sound deadening cover placed over a motion picture camera on a motion picture set to prevent the noise of the camera movement from being picked up by the microphone.”

    Audio Cyclopedia by Howard M. Tremaine, Howard W. Sams & Co., 1969, pg. 956

    February 4, 2010