firebomb

English

Etymology

From fire +‎ bomb.

Noun

firebomb (plural firebombs)

A weapon that causes fire; an incendiary weapon.
A Molotov cocktail is a simple firebomb.
- 2005, Jennifer Worth, Shadows of the Workhouse, Weidenfeld & Nicholson (2009), page 269:
  The firebombs were small, and burst into flames when they hit the ground.
- 2020 March 7, Brad Lendon and Emiko Jozuka, “History’s deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II and you’ve probably never heard of it”, in CNN‎^[1]:
  As many as 100,000 Japanese people were killed and another million injured, most of them civilians, when more than 300 American B-29 bombers dropped 1,500 tons of firebombs on the Japanese capital that night.

Translations

weapon

Finnish: palopommi (fi)
German: Brandbombe (de) f
Mongolian: шатаах бөмбөг (šataax bömbög)
Russian: зажига́тельная бо́мба f (zažigátelʹnaja bómba)
Swedish: brandbomb (sv) c
Turkish: yangın bombası (tr)

Verb

firebomb (third-person singular simple present firebombs, present participle firebombing, simple past and past participle firebombed)

(transitive) To attack with a firebomb.
The rioters firebombed the parked car.
- 2023, Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto, Fleet, page 100:
  The next week when they firebombed the Satin Room, one of Chink Montagueʼs after-hours joints, Carney assumed the mobsters were embroiled in another war.
- 2016 October 16, Eric Bradner and Adrienne Shih, “Local GOP office in North Carolina firebombed”, in CNN‎^[2]:
  A GOP office in Hillsborough, North Carolina, was firebombed over the weekend, with a swastika and the words “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” spray painted on an adjacent building, according to local officials.
- 2025 March 19, Tom Sanders, “Anti-Musk Hackers Share Names and Addresses of Tesla Owners”, in The Daily Beast‎^[3]:
  On Tuesday, a masked man used molotov cocktails to firebomb a Tesla dealership in Las Vegas before firing rounds into the burning vehicles.

Derived terms