English Idiom – To Bomb

Hello, let’s talk about an English idiom. Here’s one right here: to be a bomb. A bomb. You know what a bomb is? Boom! A bomb explodes, right? “It’s a bomb!” It’s very dangerous.

But as an idiom, it means a failure. If something is a bomb, it’s a failure. Usually it’s used for a movie, a film. A film that was really bad and nobody liked it, was a bomb. It bombed.

It can be a verb or a noun. “Be a bomb” or “to bomb.”

“That movie was terrible, it bombed! Oh my god, it was really awful. Nobody liked it.”

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The most common use is for a movie but it could be for anything. For example, maybe a business. “I tried to sell a new product but it bombed. It was a failure. Nobody bough my product. Oh, it bombed. It was a bomb.”

Sometimes I try a new activity in my classroom, teaching English. So I go in and I try to do something, but the students hate it. My activity bombed! It bombed. They hated it. They didn’t like it. Oh my god, it was a bomb.

Okay, have a nice day. Bye-bye.