Definify.com

Definition 2024


carpet_bomb

carpet bomb

See also: carpet-bomb

English

Alternative forms

Verb

carpet bomb (third-person singular simple present carpet bombs, present participle carpet bombing, simple past and past participle carpet bombed)

  1. To bomb an area in such a manner that the ordnance covers the entire area without gaps.
    The infantry were destroyed after the enemy carpet bombed the ground they were occupying.
    • 2008, Conrad Jones, Soft Target: Tank. II, page 237:
      Russian bombers were carpet bombing the ridge directly above them, in a vain attempt to kill the Mujahideen fighters that plagued their operations on the ground.
    • 2010, Ken Welch, Tiger Hound: How We Won the War & Lost the Country, page 52:
      Vietnamese Air Force continued to carpet bomb any base areas that we found to be lucrative targets at the time.
    • 2015, Ram Puniyani, Deconstructing Terrorist Violence: Faith as a Mask:
      Post World War II (WW II), terrorism against the people acquired a new dimension when America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and later carpet bombed Vietnam with Napalm.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

carpet bomb (plural carpet bombs)

  1. A bomb used in a carpet bombing.
    • 2007, Services Marketing: Text And Cases:
      This multiplicity of outlets work like carpet bombs that leave very little empty space for competition to be comfortable.
    • 2009, William Ayers, Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist:
      There was a whole new lexicon to learn: cluster bombs, fragmentation bombs, carpet bombs, napalm bombs, phosphorous bombs with their delicate spidery fingers stretching in all directions.
    • 2010, William Little, The Psychic Tourist: A Voyage into the Curious World of Predicting the Future:
      What he really means is that the psychics' powers under test functioned more like a carpet bomb than a precision missile.
  2. A bombing of this kind.
    • 2004, Keats Hanson, James Bond 007: Everything Or Nothing: Prima's Official Strategy Guide:
      This underground arena features switches that trigger lasers, and a carpet bomb of the entire lower and upper levels.
    • 2007, Doug Green, No Wife No Kids No Plan:
      I watched in awe as the pans and glasses exploded halfway across the lawn, erupting from the tarp like a simulated war scenario where the plan of attack was a carpet bomb initiated from the sky.
    • 2014, Jerald Ford, When I Am King, volume 2, page 290:
      They were probably afraid that we would bury them in another carpet bomb of expletives.

Translations