Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To attack with bombs, shells, or missiles.
  • transitive verb To assail persistently; harass: synonym: barrage.
  • transitive verb To irradiate (an atom).
  • transitive verb To attack with a cannon firing stone balls.
  • noun An early form of cannon that fired stone balls.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fire off bombards or cannon.
  • To cannonade; attack with bombs; fire shot and shell at or into; batter with shot and shell.
  • To attack with missiles of any kind; figuratively, assail vigorously: as, to bombard one with questions.
  • noun The name generally given in Europe to the cannon during the first century of its use.
  • noun See bombardelle.
  • noun A small vessel with two masts, like the English ketch, used in the Mediterranean; a bomb-ketch.
  • noun A large leathern jug or bottle for holding liquor. See black-jack, 1.
  • noun Figuratively, a toper.
  • noun A medieval musical instrument of the oboe family, having a reed mouthpiece and a wooden tube.
  • noun plural A style of breeches worn in the seventeenth century, before the introduction of tight-fitting knee-breeches.
  • noun [From the verb.] An attack with bombs; a bombardment.

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

  • noun (Mus.), obsolete See bombardo.
  • noun (Gun.) A piece of heavy ordnance formerly used for throwing stones and other ponderous missiles. It was the earliest kind of cannon.
  • noun Poetic & R. A bombardment.
  • noun obsolete A large drinking vessel or can, or a leather bottle, for carrying liquor or beer.
  • noun obsolete Padded breeches.
  • noun [Obs.] inflated language; bombast.
  • transitive verb To attack with bombards or with artillery; especially, to throw shells, hot shot, etc., at or into.

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

  • noun a medieval primitive cannon, used chiefly in sieges for throwing heavy stone balls.
  • noun obsolete a bassoon-like medieval instrument
  • noun obsolete a large liquor container made of leather, in the form of a jug or a bottle.
  • verb To attack something with bombs, artillery shells or other missiles or projectiles.
  • verb figuratively To attack something or someone by directing objects at them.
  • verb physics To direct at a substance an intense stream of high-energy particles, usually sub-atomic or made of at most a few atoms.

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

  • verb address with continuously or persistently, as if with a barrage
  • verb throw bombs at or attack with bombs
  • noun a large shawm; the bass member of the shawm family
  • verb cast, hurl, or throw repeatedly with some missile
  • verb direct high energy particles or radiation against

Etymologies

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

[From Middle English, a bombard, from Old French bombarde, from Medieval Latin bombarda, probably from Latin bombus, a booming sound; see bomb.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French bombarde bombard (as cannon), itself from Latin bombus ("buzzing; booming").

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