boomer en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- /ˈby.mɑ/ (Multicultural-London-English)
- /ˈbu.mɚ/ (General-American)
- /ˈbuː.mə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (Australia) audio
- /ˈbʉː.mə/ (Australia, New-Zealand)
Etymology
Etymology tree English boom Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English boomer From boom + -er.
Meanings
-
Something that makes a booming sound.
That's when the Rev let loose one of those great big boomers of a laugh. It was so loud in the closed space, the effect was what Wes imagined it felt like to hear a bullet fired in a car.
2010, Pearl Cleage, Till You Hear from Me, page 151:
- A device used to bind or tighten chain.
-
(US, slang) A nuclear ballistic missile submarine, SSBN.
Distant contact, probably submerged. It's a wild guess, but I'd say we hit a boomer coming out of the barn. Could be a missile boat out of Polijarny.
1990, Larry Ferguson, Donald E. Stewart, The Hunt For Red October:
- (UK) A Eurasian bittern (subfamily Botaurinae spp.).
- An adult male kangaroo.
- (Appalachia) A red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).
- A sewellel (Aplodontia rufa).
-
(qualifier:realtime strategy games) A player who prioritises economic development and securing resources (and therefore future production) over offence or defence.
Economically speaking, the attacker loses every time. So it's a war of the boomers.
2000 August 28, Ghost, “Request for opinion: curious about the massive villager concept”, in alt.games.microsoft.age-of-kings (Usenet):2008 June 12, Kresten Toftgaard Andersen, Anders Buch, Dennis Dahl Christensen & Dung Tran, "Reinforcement Learning in RTS games" (master thesis), page 51. The strategy of the rusher is to build a small army very fast in order to destroy the enemy early in the game, whereas the aggressive/boomer builds a larger army, which is not necessarily an advanced army, to attack the enemy.
2008 July 13-15, Jin Park, Du Zhang & Meiliu Lu, "An intelligent agent for the game of Age of Mythology: the Titans", 2008 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration, page 93. Once the Heroic Age is reached, the boomer is able to generate a superior army at an explosive rate due to the advanced economy.
you and i both know that there are some boomers out there who'll consistently hit bronze @ 16ish and assuming they have protected themselves correctly, are some tough players.
1999 August 19, polo@zTech, “Keep on getting beaten!”, in microsoft.public.ageofempires (Usenet):
-
(US, alt-of, historical) Alternative letter-case form of Boomer (“Oklahoma settler”).
alt of Boomer
- (US) A transient worker who would move from boom town to boom town in search of temporary work.
-
A techno-optimist, in particular concerning artificial intelligence.
The doomers and the boomers are consumed by intramural fights, but from a distance they can look like two offshoots of the same tribe: people who are convinced that A.I. is the only thing worth paying attention to.
2024 March 18, Andrew Marantz, “О.К., Doomer”, in The New Yorker, page 50:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| boomers | Number=Plur | lexicographic |