buzz bomb

American

noun

Military.

a type of self-steering aerial bomb, launched from large land-based rocket platforms: used by the Germans in World War II, especially over England.

buzz bomb British

noun

another name for the V-1

"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 buzz bomb

First recorded in 1940–45

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.

Doak is still a teenager and hasn’t played a competitive game since last December, but he was a buzz bomb on the right.

From BBC • Sep. 5, 2024

There's clearly nothing that Rangers can do to defuse the buzz bomb that is Kyogo Furuhashi.

From BBC • Sep. 3, 2023

These jet-propelled, sub-sonic unmanned airplanes are descendants of the German V-1 buzz bomb.

From Salon • Jan. 12, 2014

These jet-propelled, subsonic unmanned airplanes are descendants of the German V-1 buzz bomb.

From Salon • Dec. 8, 2013

Well aware that they are launching a biographical buzz bomb, which may have serious repercussions in the autograph market, Author Smith & Others make haste to deny that their book is an attack on Shelley.

From Time Magazine Archive

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