boom

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a sudden happening that brings good fortune, as a sudden opportunity to make money

   The demand for testing has created a boom.

2. 2
   verb

   to grow vigorously

   Our field is booming.

3. 3
   verb

   to hit hard

   They were boomed by a car.

4. 4
   verb

   to make a deep hollow sound

   Their voice booms out the words of the song.

5. 5
   verb

   to make a resonant sound, like thunder, fireworks, or artillery

   The thunder boomed in the background.

6. 6
   verb

   To make a loud, hollow, resonant sound.

   Thunder boomed in the distance and lightning flashes lit up the horizon.

7. 7
   verb

   To exclaim with force, to shout, to thunder.

   I was about to reach for the marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose to attend to it. “Bertram Wooster's residence,” I said, having connected with the instrument. “Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo,” I added, for the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs Thomas Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich – or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia. [...] “I'd give a tenner to have Aubrey Upjohn here at this moment.” “You can get him for nothing. He's in Uncle Tom's study.” Her face lit up. “He is?” [Aunt Dahlia] threw her head back and inflated the lungs. “UPJOHN!” she boomed, rather like someone calling the cattle home across the sands of Dee, and I issued a kindly word of warning. “Watch that blood pressure, old ancestor.”

8. 8
   verb

   To flourish, grow, or progress.

   The population boomed in recent years.

Etymology

Onomatopoeic, perhaps borrowed; compare German bummen, Dutch bommen (“to hum, buzz”). The sense "a period of economic growth" is generally taken to derive from the sense "a rapid expansion", although other origins have also been suggested.