Advertisement

Advertisement

View synonyms for bombed

bombed

[ bomd ]

adjective

, Slang.
  1. completely intoxicated; drunk.
  2. completely under the influence of drugs; high.


bombed

/ bɒmd /

adjective

  1. slang.
    under the influence of alcohol or drugs (esp in the phrase bombed out of one's mind or skull )
“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
Discover More

Other Words From

  • un·bombed adjective
Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of bombed1

First recorded in 1935–40; bomb + -ed 2
Discover More

Example Sentences

Gaza’s two schools of medicine, she added, have been bombed and its universities reduced to rubble.

From Salon

Anyway, Biden’s preferred woman of color for vice president was Harris, the then-California senator whose own White House bid had bombed.

In August, Diya was playing a computer game in a coffee shop when Israel bombed it.

From BBC

"Baalbek is the major Roman site in Lebanon. You couldn't replace it if someone bombed it," says Graham Philip, an archaeology professor at Durham University.

From BBC

Andre told me about the time in 1985 when the Philadelphia police bombed Cobbs Creek, burning two whole city blocks and killing people, in an effort to drive out a Black rights group.

From Salon

Advertisement

Discover More

About This Word

What does bombed mean?

Bombed is a slang adjective that means extremely drunk or high on drugs or both.

Bombed is just one of the many slang synonyms for intoxicated that involve a sense of destruction, including destroyed, blitzed, hammered, smashed, wasted, and trashed. Other synonyms include sloshed, tanked, and plastered. 

Such words often imply that a person is intoxicated beyond a point of being able to function in even the most basic ways. Someone who’s described as bombed probably can’t even walk or talk properly. In many cases, a person who’s bombed is intoxicated to the point of blacking out—losing consciousness and probably losing their memory of what happened when they were intoxicated.

Bombed is often used in the phrases bombed out of one’s mind and bombed out of one’s skull, as in The guy was bombed out of his mind on PCP and ranting and raving at everyone. 

Example: He got so bombed that he couldn’t remember anything that happened before he woke up in his car, which he had crashed into a tree.

Where does bombed come from?

The first records of the slang use of bombed come from around the 1930s. It comes from the past tense of the word bomb, meaning to attempt to destroy something with bombs (explosives) as part of an attack.

The adjective bombed-out uses bombed in this sense. Describing something as bombed-out means it is destroyed, either by literally having been bombed or as if it had been.

Describing someone as bombed, however, just means they are extremely drunk or high or both. The phrases bombed out of one’s mind and bombed out of one’s skull especially emphasize the dramatic and harmful effects that drugs and alcohol can have on the brain, resulting in things like memory loss, slurred speech, and the inability to walk without staggering or at all.

Did you know ... ?

What are some synonyms for bombed?

What are some words that share a root or word element with bombed

What are some words that often get used in discussing bombed?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


bombebombed-out