boom

• enPR: boo͞m
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /buːm/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /bum/
• Rhymes: -uːm

Onomatopoeic, perhaps borrowed; compare German bummen, Dutch bommen (“to hum, buzz”).

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. To make a loud, hollow, resonant sound.

   Thunder boomed in the distance and lightning flashes lit up the horizon.

   The cannon boomed, recoiled, and spewed a heavy smoke cloud.

   Beneath the cliff, the sea was booming on the rocks.

   I can hear the organ slowly booming from the chapel.

   • 1902, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

     Did you ever hear a bittern booming?

2. (transitive, figuratively, of speech) To exclaim with force, to shout, to thunder.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “I and XVII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     I was about to reach for the marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose to attend to it. “Bertram Wooster's residence,” I said, having connected with the instrument. “Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo,” I added, for the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs Thomas Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich – or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia.
     [...]
     “I'd give a tenner to have Aubrey Upjohn here at this moment.” “You can get him for nothing. He's in Uncle Tom's study.” Her face lit up. “He is?” [Aunt Dahlia] threw her head back and inflated the lungs. “UPJOHN!” she boomed, rather like someone calling the cattle home across the sands of Dee, and I issued a kindly word of warning. “Watch that blood pressure, old ancestor.”

3. (transitive) To make something boom.

   Men in grey robes slowly boom the drums of death.

4. (slang, US, obsolete) To publicly praise.
   • (Can we date this quote?), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Problem of Thor Bridge

     If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming you.

5. To rush with violence and noise, as a ship under a press of sail, before a free wind.
   • Totten

     She comes booming down before it.

• boom box
• boom-boom
• sonic boom

boom (plural booms)

1. A low-pitched, resonant sound, such as of an explosion.

   The boom of the surf.

2. One of the calls of certain monkeys or birds.
   • 1990, Mark A. Berkley, William C. Stebbins, Comparative Perception

     Interestingly, the blue monkey's boom and pyow calls are both long-distance signals (Brown, 1989), yet the two calls differ in respect to their susceptibility to habitat-induced degradation.

boom

1. used to suggest the sound of an explosion.
2. used to suggest something happening suddenly and unexpectedly.
   • 1993, Vibe (volume 1, number 2)

     So we went around the corner, looked in the garbage, and, boom, there's about 16 of the tapes he didn't like!

   • 2013, Peter Westoby, ‎Gerard Dowling, Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development

     Hostile race relations and chronic unemployment are ignored in the suburbs of Paris, London and Sydney, and boom! there are riots.

Borrowed from Dutch boom (“tree; pole”). Doublet of beam.

boom (plural booms)

1. (nautical) A spar extending the foot of a sail; a spar rigged outboard from a ship's side to which boats are secured in harbour.
2. A movable pole used to support a microphone or camera.
3. A horizontal member of a crane or derrick, used for lifting.
4. (electronics) The longest element of a Yagi antenna, on which the other, smaller ones are transversally mounted.
5. A floating barrier used to obstruct navigation, for military or other purposes; or used for the containment of an oil spill or to control the flow of logs from logging operations.
6. A wishbone-shaped piece of windsurfing equipment.
7. The section of the arm on a backhoe closest to the tractor.
8. A gymnastics apparatus similar to a balance beam.

   • 1948, Josephine Tey, 'Miss Pym Disposes':

     The wooden upright was now standing in the middle of the floor, and the two booms were fitted into its grooved side and hoisted as high as hands could reach. [...] Two by two, one at each end, the students proceeded along the boom, hanging by their hands, monkey-wise. [...] Two by two the students somersaulted upwards on to the high boom, turned to a sitting position sideways, and then slowly stood up on the narrow ledge.

• boomhouse

• (nautical): buoy, cathead
• crane

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. To extend, or push, with a boom or pole.

   to boom out a sail; to boom off a boat

Perhaps a figurative development of Etymology 1, above.

boom (plural booms)

1. (economics, business) A period of prosperity, growth, progress, or high market activity.

• (period of prosperity): recession

boom (third-person singular simple present booms, present participle booming, simple past and past participle boomed)

1. (intransitive) To flourish, grow, or progress.

   The population boomed in recent years.

   Business was booming.

2. (transitive, dated) To cause to advance rapidly in price.

   to boom railroad or mining shares

• (to be prosperous): flourish, prosper

• sis boom bah
• boom town/boomtown

• MOBO, mobo, moob

From Dutch boom, from Old Dutch bōm, boum, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz.

• IPA^(key): /bʊəm/

boom (plural bome, diminutive boompie)

1. tree

From Middle Dutch bôom, from Old Dutch bōm, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz.

• IPA^(key): /boːm/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: boom
• Rhymes: -oːm

boom m (plural bomen, diminutive boompje n)

1. tree
2. any solid, pole-shaped, usually wooden object
   1. beam
   2. mast

      Synonym: mast

   3. boom

      Synonym: giek

• Afrikaans: boom
• → English: boom
• → Sranan Tongo: bon

Borrowed from English boom.

• IPA^(key): /buːm/
• Hyphenation: boom

boom m (plural booms, diminutive boompje n)

1. boom, as in a market explosion

• M. J. Koenen & J. Endepols, Verklarend Handwoordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (tevens Vreemde-woordentolk), Groningen, Wolters-Noordhoff, 1969 (26th edition) [Dutch dictionary in Dutch]

• boom on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Boom in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• boum

Borrowed from English boom.

• IPA^(key): /bum/

boom m (plural booms)

1. boom (dramatically fast increase)

Borrowed from English boom, from Dutch boom - see above.

boom m (invariable)

1. A boom (sound)
2. A boom, rapid expansion
3. A boom (crane)

From Old Dutch bōm, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz.

bôom m

1. tree
2. beam, pole
3. boom barrier

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: boom
• Limburgish: boum

• “boom”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• “boom (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, 1929

Borrowed from English boom.

boom m (plural booms)

1. (economics, business) boom (period of prosperity)

Borrowed from English boom.

boom m (plural booms)

1. boom (period of prosperity or high market activity)

• bum