Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive & intransitive verb To bomb in a systematic and extensive pattern, so as to devastate a large target area uniformly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Alternative spelling of carpet bomb.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • If anything, they need something like a few hundred long-range bombers with which they can carpet-bomb Russia.

    Matthew Yglesias » Defense Spending in Europe 2010

  • But somewhere near the top sits the impulse of some gardeners and landscapers to sprinkle, or rather carpet-bomb, tree wells, planting beds, indeed entire suburban shopping malls not otherwise devoted to asphalt with these radioactive-looking cedar chips.

    Mulch Ado About Nothing Ralph Gardner Jr. 2011

  • But somewhere near the top sits the impulse of some gardeners and landscapers to sprinkle, or rather carpet-bomb, tree wells, planting beds, indeed entire suburban shopping malls not otherwise devoted to asphalt with these radioactive-looking cedar chips.

    Mulch Ado About Nothing Ralph Gardner Jr. 2011

  • Israel should carpet-bomb Tel-Aviv in retaliation.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Dog That Hasn’t Barked 2009

  • Israel should carpet-bomb Tel-Aviv in retaliation.

    Matthew Yglesias » Gaza in Context 2009

  • I've long wondered if the best way to triumph in the clash of civilizations would be to carpet-bomb our enemies with consumer goods: generators, refrigerators, trash compactors, televisions, stereos, music videos, Play Stations . . . once they're hooked on Left 4 Dead, Lady Gaga, and Noor, we can declare victory and go home.

    News from the Mideast Walter Jon Williams 2010

  • Don't sit there with the idea you know squat about films and carpet-bomb us with your embarrassing lack of intelligence towards film.

    Sound Off: The Happening - What Did You Think? « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • But surely the great man never meant for this to apply to people like Hitler who was never going to be stopped by love but only by an eloquent loathing as articulated by Winston Churchill which summoned an allied campaign to carpet-bomb his war-making apparatus into oblivion.

    Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Love the Victims, Loathe their Killers 2009

  • And Bloomberg possesses an advantage no previous mayor ever enjoyed: a personal fortune that allows him to carpet-bomb any obstacles to his continuance in power.

    Jarrett Murphy: Bloomberg The Survivor 2009

  • If a corporation likes a politician, they can make sure he or she is elected every time; if they become upset with a politician, they can carpet-bomb her district with a few million dollars worth of ads and politically destroy her.

    Fascism Coming to a Court Near You; Corporate Personhood and the Roberts' Court 2009

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