boomer
nounUK /ˈbuːmə/ · US /ˈbumɚ/
Etymology From boom + -er.
11 senses
- 1Something that makes a booming sound.
- 2A device used to bind or tighten chain.
- 3A nuclear ballistic missile submarine, SSBN.
- 4A Eurasian bittern (subfamily Botaurinae spp.).
- 5An adult male kangaroo.
- 6A red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).
- 7A sewellel (Aplodontia rufa).
- 8A player who prioritises economic development and…
- 9Alternative letter-case form of Boomer (“Oklahoma settler”).
- 10A transient worker who would move from boom town to boom…
- 11A techno-optimist, in particular concerning artificial…
Something that makes a booming sound.
- That's when the Rev let loose one of those great big boomers of a laugh. It was so loud in the closed space, the effect was what Wes imagined it felt like to hear a bullet fired in a car.2010, Pearl Cleage, Till You Hear from Me, page 151:
A device used to bind or tighten chain.
Government, Military, Nautical, Politics, Transport, War US, Slang A nuclear ballistic missile submarine, SSBN.
- Distant contact, probably submerged. It's a wild guess, but I'd say we hit a boomer coming out of the barn. Could be a missile boat out of Polijarny.1990, Larry Ferguson, Donald E. Stewart, The Hunt For Red October:
UK A Eurasian bittern (subfamily Botaurinae spp.).
An adult male kangaroo.
Appalachia A red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).
A sewellel (Aplodontia rufa).
A player who prioritises economic development and securing resources (and therefore future production) over offence or defence.
Realtime strategy games
- you and i both know that there are some boomers out there who'll consistently hit bronze @ 16ish and assuming they have protected themselves correctly, are some tough players.1999 August 19, polo@zTech, “Keep on getting beaten!”, in microsoft.public.ageofempires (Usenet):
- Economically speaking, the attacker loses every time. So it's a war of the boomers.2000 August 28, Ghost, “Request for opinion: curious about the massive villager concept”, in alt.games.microsoft.age-of-kings (Usenet):
2 more examples
- 2008 June 12, Kresten Toftgaard Andersen, Anders Buch, Dennis Dahl Christensen & Dung Tran, "Reinforcement Learning in RTS games" (master thesis), page 51. The strategy of the rusher is to build a small army very fast in order to destroy the enemy early in the game, whereas the aggressive/boomer builds a larger army, which is not necessarily an advanced army, to attack the enemy.
- 2008 July 13-15, Jin Park, Du Zhang & Meiliu Lu, "An intelligent agent for the game of Age of Mythology: the Titans", 2008 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration, page 93. Once the Heroic Age is reached, the boomer is able to generate a superior army at an explosive rate due to the advanced economy.
US, Historical Alternative letter-case form of Boomer (“Oklahoma settler”).
US A transient worker who would move from boom town to boom town in search of temporary work.
A techno-optimist, in particular concerning artificial intelligence.
- The doomers and the boomers are consumed by intramural fights, but from a distance they can look like two offshoots of the same tribe: people who are convinced that A.I. is the only thing worth paying attention to.2024 March 18, Andrew Marantz, “О.К., Doomer”, in The New Yorker, page 50:
- Derived terms
- thunderboomer