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Webster's Dictionary (1865)

2 entries under this word

Boom

Bōōm, n.

noun

n. [D. boom, tree, pole, beam, bar, Dan. & Sw. bom, bar, rail, boom, Ger. baum, tree, beam, boom. See BEAM.]

  1. (Naut.) A long pole or spar, run out from various parts of a ship, or other vessel, for the purpose of extending the bottom of particular sails; as, the jib boom, studding-sail boom, main boom, square-sail boom, &c. Mar. Dict.
  2. A strong iron chain cable, or line of spars bound together, extended across a river or the mouth of a harbor, to obstruct navigation or passage. Totten.
  3. A pole set up as a mark to direct seamen how to keep the channel in shallow water.
  4. A hollow roar, as of waves or cannon; the hollow cry of the bittern. [See infra.] Crabbe.
  5. (pl.) That space on the upper deck of a ship between the fore and main-mast, where the boats, spare spars, &c., are stowed. Totten.

Boom, v. i.

verbintransitive

[imp. & p. p. BOOMED; p. pr. & vb. n. BOOMING.] [From the preceding noun, Ger. bäumen, sich bäumen, aufbäumen, to erect or be erected, like a tree.]

Sense 1. To rush with violence, as a ship under a press of sail. “She comes booming down before it.” Totten.

Sense 2. [W. bwmp, a hollow sound; bwmp y gors, the hollow sound of the bog or fen, and aderyn y bwmp, the bird of the hollow sound, is the name of the bittern. Cf. D. bommen, to drum, to sound as an empty barrel, bom, drum, A-S. byme, bême, trumpet, bymian, to blow or sound a trumpet. The cry of this bird resembles the bellowing of an ox or the beat of a drum. In this sense the word, according to its Celtic origin, is also written bump, q. v.] To cry with a hollow note; to make a hollow sound, as the bittern. “The bittern booms it in the reeds.” Cotton.

At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone. Tennyson.

Sense 3. To make a hollow sound or roar, as of waves or cannon. “Alarm guns booming through the night air.” Irving.

The hoarse waves booming to the ocean shore. Hillhouse.