Dictionary

time bomb en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From time + bomb.

Meanings

1. A bomb that has a mechanism such that detonation can be preset to a particular time.
   • At 9.40 a.m. on Bank Holiday Monday, August 5, a ganger found what was thought to be a time bomb at a level crossing at Tempsford, near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, […] Inside one box was a brick; the other contained the works of an old alarm clock. 1957 October 14, “Notes and News: Bomb Hoax at Tempsford”, in Railway Magazine, pages 735, 736:
2. A malicious program designed to perform a destructive action at a certain date or time.
   • Donald Gene Burleson was prosecuted on felony charges for planting a time bomb that, shortly after he was fired, deleted more than 168,000 brokerage records of USPA & IRA in Fort Worth, Texas. 1994, Peter G. Neumann, Computer-Related Risks, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN:
3. (figuratively) A situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time.
   • The pandemic preparation timebomb detonated to devastating effect; a number of other timebombs are on the shortest of fuses. The government has now reached a state of perfect vicious cycle, when the only thing worse than the things it does are all the things it didn’t get round to doing. 2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian:
   • Even so, they managed to morph the recent European parliamentary elections into a time bomb and plant it under their country’s own future. 2014 June 6, Françoise Fressoz, “France’s Ticking Time Bomb”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • Someone must explain to Sunak about the time bomb ticking beneath his £1,000 loafers. 2023 May 31, Nigel Harris, “Comment: GBR now! We have no Plan B”, in RAIL, number 984, page 3:

Forms

Deriveds

Vietnamese time bomb

Relateds

accident waiting to happen

Synonyms

ticking bomb · ticking time bomb

Translations (44)

fr bombe à retardement (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · it bomba a tempo (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · cmn 定時炸彈 /定时炸弹 (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · cmn 計時炸彈 /计时炸弹 (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · hu időzített bomba (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · es bomba de relojería (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · tr saatli bomba (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · sv tidsinställd bomb (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · ar قُنْبُلَةٌ مَوْقُوتَةٌ (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ko 시한폭탄 (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · gl bomba de reloxería (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · fr bombe à retardement (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · af tydbom (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · nl tijdbom (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · it bomba a tempo (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · gl bomba de reloxería (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · cs časovaná bomba (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · el ωρολογιακή βόμβα (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ja 時限爆弾 (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · es bomba de relojería (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · nl tijdbom (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · th ระเบิดเวลา (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · fi aikapommi (computing: program designed to perform a destructive action at a certain date and/or time) · uk бомба вповільненої дії (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ms bom jangka (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · fi aikapommi (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · pl bomba zegarowa (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · pl bomba zegarowa (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · uk бомба вповільненої дії (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · ru бо́мба заме́дленного де́йствия (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · fa بمب ساعتی (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · hu időzített bomba (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · it bomba a orologeria (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ru бо́мба с часовы́м механи́змом (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ca bomba de rellotgeria (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · cy bom amser (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · ga buama ama (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · id bom waktu (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · fi aikapommi (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · it bomba a orologeria (situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time) · pt bomba-relógio (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · sv tidsinställd bomb (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · de Zeitbombe (bomb with a timeout mechanism) · cs časovaná bomba (bomb with a timeout mechanism)