airburst

American

[air-burst] / ˈɛərˌbɜrst /

noun

the explosion of a bomb or shell in midair.

airburst British

/ ˈɛəˌbɜːst /

noun

the explosion of a bomb, shell, etc, in the air

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of airburst

First recorded in 1915–20; air ¹ + burst

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

airburst

It shows the walls and ground covered by small tightly-packed impact marks which match the spread of fragments from an airburst warhead like a PrSM, according to expert analysis.

From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026

Recent research led by Kennett includes four newly published studies presenting evidence for multiple airburst events that occurred at different points in the past.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 19, 2025

That leaves his group where it was before the discovery of Hiawatha: arguing the Younger Dryas trigger was an airburst rather than a body slamming into the ground.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 8, 2022

The airburst explosion of the meteor packed an energy equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, they calculated.

From Scientific American ● Nov. 6, 2013

A Chelyabinsk-like airburst occurs somewhere on Earth on average every 50 years, usually over the oceans.

From Nature

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023