• • (British) IPA: /buːm/
  • (America) IPA: /bum/

boom (booms, present participle booming; 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.

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.
   • , 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.

   • She comes booming down before it.

• Portuguese: estrondear, ribombar
• Russian: рокота́ть

• German: dröhnen
• Spanish: retumbar

• Russian: грохнуть

boom (plural booms)

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

   The boom of the surf.

2. A rapid expansion or increase.

   You should prepare for the coming boom in the tech industry.

3. 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.

• French: boum
• German: Dröhnen
• Portuguese: estrondo
• Russian: гул
• Spanish: bum

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.

• French: boum
• German: Bumm
• Portuguese: bum
• Russian: бах
• Spanish: bum

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.

• (nautical) buoy, cathead
• crane

• French: bôme
• German: Baum
• Italian: boma
• Portuguese: retranca

• French: perche

• French: mat, hausse
• German: Ausleger
• Portuguese: lança
• Russian: стрела́

• Russian: бон

boom (booms, present participle booming; 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

2. (usually with "up" or "down") To raise or lower with a crane boom.

boom (plural booms)

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

• (period of prosperity) recession

• French: boom
• German: Aufschwung, Boom
• Portuguese: boom
• Russian: бум
• Spanish: boom

boom (booms, present participle booming; 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

• French: prospérer
• German: blühen, florieren, boomen
• Portuguese: florescer, prosperar
• Russian: процвета́ть

1. A Belgian town and municipality in the southwest of the Flemish province of Antwerp.