Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Buzz; humming noise.

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

  • noun A humming or buzzing.

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

  • noun the act or sound of humming or buzzing; hum, buzz

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

  • noun sound of rapid vibration

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From bombinate ("to hum").

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Examples

  • Whenever he sees that the attention of his audience is flagging he introduces an interlude of "bombination," which renders lethargy impossible and exercises an indescribably stimulating effect on the tympanum.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 Various 1898

  • I would like to have a meditation, a rumination, a lucubration, a bombination, about the prostate.

    Archive 2008-12-01 2008

  • I would like to have a meditation, a rumination, a lucubration, a bombination, about the prostate.

    Writing about the certainty of death 2008

  • A neo-Georgian poet, disciple of FREUD, pacificist and vegetarian, will gladly pay five pounds to any psychopathic suggestionist who will extirpate from his subconsciousness the lingering relics of an antipathy to syncopated rhythms which retard his progress towards a complete mastery of the technique of amorphous bombination.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, July 14th, 1920 Various

  • The fololwing of a conata, like the bombination of a chimæra, apparently puts some strain upon the attention of an audience.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, February 26, 1919 Various

  • For he was able to assure them, speaking with the authority of one who had taken first-class honours in Zoology, that the study of Greek more than anything else predisposed people to influenza by promoting cachexia, often leading to arterio-sclerosis, bombination of the tympanum, and even astigmatism of the pineal gland.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, April 16, 1919 Various

Comments

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  • Buzzing, droning.

    May 12, 2008

  • rat-a-tat-tat

    October 24, 2010