mail bombn.
/ˈmeɪl bɒm/, U.S. /ˈmeɪl ˌbɑm/ 1. U.S. An explosive device sent through the post, usually set off by the recipient on opening the mail that contained it; a letter or parcel bomb.
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society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > other bombs
iron bomb1759
suicide bomb1889
crump1914
radio bomb1914
marmite1915
pineapple bomb1916
pineapple1918
germ bomb1921
stick-bomb1928
bomblet1937
breadbasket1940
flash bomb1940
blockbuster1942
butterfly bomb1942
screamer1942
plastic bomb1944
napalm bomb1945
mail bomb1972
blast bomb1976
1972 N.Y. Times 24 Sept. iv. 2/3 (heading) Mail bombs: death in an envelope.
1982 Business Week (Nexis) 12 Apr. 39 After [the] RWDSU President..was injured in a mail-bomb explosion in his office (a crime that has never been solved), his executive board voted to ‘suspend’ talks until after the union's May 31 convention.
1998 Security Managem. (Nexis) Nov. 61 The key to any mail bomb protection program is to have good screening procedures that allow employees to identify packages that may contain an explosive device.
2. Computing. An abnormally large volume of electronic mail sent (in a single message, or a very large number of messages in a short space of time), with malicious or vindictive intent, esp. in the expectation that the receiving computer will crash or be disabled.Such action is usually taken in retribution for some perceived violation of etiquette. (Quot. 1989 is an isolated instance in the sense of ‘a virus delivered by email’.)
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1989 Byte May (Nexis) 256/2 A mail bomb is a mail message that makes use of a dangerous feature of many ‘smart’ terminals: It contains an escape sequence that causes the terminal to send data on the screen back to the host system.]
1994 Guardian 30 Apr. 23/7 He was inundated with abuse, including a ‘mail bomb’—eight million characters of gibberish designed to clog up his system.
1998 Managem. Accounting (Nexis) July 52 The source of the mail bomb can be a single server out there somewhere on the Internet, or it could be a program that wanders around to the machines that subscribe people to e-mail lists.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
mail bombv.
/ˈmeɪl bɒm/, U.S. /ˈmeɪl ˌbɑm/ transitive. To send an explosive device or electronic-mail ‘bomb’ to (a destination, esp. an address or individual). Also (occasionally) intransitive: to send a mail bomb (in either sense).
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1990 Del Rio (Texas) News-Herald 28 Apr. 2/2 CBN mail bombed. A bomb in a package addressed to the Rev. Pat Robertson exploded yesterday at his Christian Broadcasting Network's mailroom.
1993 E. S. Raymond New Hacker's Dict. (ed. 2) 268 Mailbomb, to send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of email to a single system or person, as in retaliation for a perceived serious offense.
1994 Sun (Baltimore) (Nexis) 18 June c16 The firm was widely attacked for abusing the system, and users replied by ‘mail-bombing’ the lawyers' E-mail address—sending thousands of messages, causing a breakdown in the computer network that the firm uses.
1995 Wired Mar. 46/1 Boldt lists the e-mail addresses of people responsible for junk e-mail and Net spamming so you can easily add them to your kill file or mail bomb 'em back.
1998 Computer Reseller News (Nexis) 21 Dec. As anyone who has received an unsolicited E-mail from a sex site or has been mail-bombed can attest, the application meant to simplify communications often brings its own dilemmas.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1972v.1990