blimp en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈblɪmp/ (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)
- blĭmp (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
Origin not entirely certain. However, most historians believe that it is onomatopoeia for the sound a blimp makes when thumped. Although there is some disagreement among historians, credit for coining the term is usually given to Lt. A. D. Cunningham of the British Royal Navy in 1915. There is an often repeated, but false, alternative explanation for the term. The erroneous story is that at some time in the early 20th century, the United States military had two classes for airships: Type A-rigid and Type B-limp, hence “blimp”. In fact, A. D. Topping reports on the “Etymology of ‘Blimp’”, in the AAHS Journal, Winter 1963, that: : “there was no American ‘A-class’ of airships as such—all military aircraft, heavier or lighter-than-air were designated with ‘A’ until the appearance of B-class airships in May 1917. There was an American B airship—but there seems to be no record of any official designation of non-rigids as ‘limp’. Further, according to the Oxford Dictionary, the first appearance of the word in print was in 1916, in England, a year before the first B-class airship.”
Meanings
-
An airship constructed with a nonrigid lifting agent container.
2004 February 16&23, The New Yorker
-
(broadly) Any large airborne inflatable.
a 6 meter high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies
2018 July 14, “Trump baby balloon: giant blimp takes to the sky above Edinburgh after being transported from London”, in Evening Standard:
- (slang) An obese person.
- A person similar to the cartoon character Colonel Blimp; a pompous, reactionary British man.
-
A soundproof cover for a video camera.
You can create your own blimp or barney with anything that will deaden the camera noise, such as a changing bag, foam rubber, […]
2015, Peter W. Rea, David K. Irving, Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, page 209:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| blimps | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
blimpish · sound blimp · blimplike · Blimp · blimpy
Hypernyms
Synonyms
barrage balloon · nonrigid · barney · Gossage
Translations (38)
da blimp (airship) · de Zeppelin (airship) · ja 飛行船 (airship) · pl tłuścioch (obese person) · pl grubaska (obese person) · pl grubas (obese person) · he סְפִינַת אֲוִיר (airship) · cs neztužená vzducholoď (airship) · it dirigibile floscio (airship) · de Prallluftschiff (airship) · sv blimp (airship) · ko 소형 연식 비행선 (airship) · pt dirigível (airship) · fi läski (obese person) · hu léghajó (airship) · ru мя́гкий дирижа́бль (airship) · de Fettsack (obese person) · fr ballon dirigeable (airship) · fr dirigeable (airship) · pl sterowiec ciśnieniowy (airship) · de Blimp (airship) · es dirigible no rígido (airship) · nl blimp (airship) · nl zeppelin (airship) · ro dirijabil (airship) · ru дирижа́бль (airship) · bg възду́шен ко́раб (airship) · fi ilmalaiva (airship) · pl tłuściocha (obese person) · ar مُنْطَاد ذُو مُحَرِّك (airship) · es blimp (airship) · cmn 軟式小型飛船 /软式小型飞船 (airship) · he ספינת אוויר (airship) · is loftskip (airship) · ro grăsan (obese person) · pl sterowiec (airship) · ja 軟式飛行船 (airship) · ro umflat (obese person)