Forms: 5 bombon, bummyn, bumbyn, bome, 6 bomme, 7– bomb, (9 bome), 8– boom. [Of imitative origin; whether original in Eng. it is impossible to determine; cf. Ger. bummen, Du. bommen, of similar meaning, ODu. bom a drum; also BOMB, which in its origin is closely allied. The development of sense 2 is not quite clear; it may be a different word.
But in Sc., the equivalent ‘bum’ is used both of the hum of bees, etc., of the sound of a passing shot or stone, and of the rushing motion of a stone or the like, as ‘to bum stones at any one,’ to kick an object and send it bumming (i.e., spinning) away.’]
1. intr. Tó hum or buzz, as a bee or beetle; to make a loud, deep sound with much resonance, as a cannon, a large bell, the waves of the sea, etc.; also the usual word to express the cry of the bittern.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 55. Bombon as been [K., H., 1499 bummyn or bumbyn], bombizo.
1653. Palsgr., 460/1. This waspe bommeth about myne eare.
1713. Young, Last Day, I. 27. Booming o’er his head The billows close.
1815. Hogg, Pilgrims of Sun, II. Poems (1822), II. 48. Swift as the wild-bee’s note, that on the wing Bombs like unbodied voice along the gale.
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., 407. Unless I get home, Ere the curfew bome.
1865. Miss Braddon, Only a Clod, xxxvii. 303. All the machinery in London seemed buzzing and booming in her ears.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 44. The bittern booms amid its pestilent and stagnant marshes.
b. trans. Usually with out. To give forth or utter with a booming sound.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. VI. vi. 354. Saint-Antoine booming out eloquent tocsin, of its own accord.
1870. Miss Bridgman, R. Lynne, I. xvii. 303. The … clock boomed out twelve.
c. In Curling, etc.: To move rapidly onward with booming sound. Cf. BUM v. Sc.
a. 1835. Hogg, in Whistle-binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. III. 34. We’d boom across the Milky Way, One tee should be the Northern Wain, Another bright Orion’s ray, A comet for a Channel Stane!
2. intr. ‘To rush with violence; as a ship is said to come booming, when she makes all the sail she can’ (Phillips, 1706; whence in J., etc.).
1617[?]. Fight at Sea, in Arb., Garner, II. 200. The first of them booming by himself before the wind.
1706. Phillips.
1876. C. D. Warner, Winter on Nile, x. 130. We are booming along all night.
1879. Lumberman’s Gaz., 19 Dec. The three drives … with plenty of water come booming along at a most lively rate.
