R-bomb

English

Alternative forms

• r-bomb, R bomb

Etymology 1

Abbreviation of read + bomb.

Verb

R-bomb (third-person singular simple present R-bombs, present participle R-bombing, simple past and past participle R-bombed)

1. (slang, neologism, transitive) To leave someone's text message on read without replying.

   Synonym: leave someone on read

   • 2010 November 3, @victoriapand, Twitter‎^[1], archived from the original on 16 May 2024:

     Being r-bombed is roughhh

   • 2015, Alfred R. Taylor, The Write Way to Get a Girlfriend, →ISBN, page 53:

     "Joe," Juan said. "You been r-bombing me." ¶ He turned around and faced Juan. ¶ "Not me," he said. "Dad's got my phone. Wants to know what I'm into."

   • 2017 September 5, Azzura Lalani, “Hatfishing, cuffing and R-bombs: The new dating lingo”, in Toronto Star‎^[2], Toronto, Ont.: Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-05-16:

     When you leave a message as "read," but you don't reply, you've just R-bombed someone, and that's not very nice.

   • 2018 February 13, Holly Cabrera, “Don't show me the (read) receipts”, in The McGill Tribune‎^[3], archived from the original on 2024-05-16:

     Certainly, an advantage to activating read receipts is that they hold us accountable to not only responding, but doing so in a timely fashion. While Apple has made activating them optional, platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Snapchat don't offer smartphone users the luxury of choosing blissful ignorance. Instead, we must confront the fact that our presumably busy texting partner did indeed "R-bomb" us.

   • 2018 May 24, Olivia Petter, “R-bombing: The new dating trend you may have already experienced”, in The Independent‎^[4], London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-10-20:

     Whatever their line, Preece explains that a persistent R-bomber is typically disinterested in the person they're R-bombing but is simply too afraid or immature to admit it.

   • 2018 May 26, Ellen Scott, “R-bombing is the new dating term you've likely already put up with”, in Metro‎^[5], London: DMG Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-11-08:

     If you've ever seen those blue ticks on Whatsapp with no response, and become increasingly irate, you've been R-bombed.

   • 2018 July 31, Cat Rodie, “You’re definitely a victim of R-bombing and you don’t even know it”, in New York Post‎^[6], New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-04-06:

     Jocelyn Brewer is a psychologist and digital nutritionist with a special interest in the way human behavior and technology intersect. She says that people who R-bomb are likely to lack basic communication skills.

   • 2021 February 4, @JeremySumook, Twitter‎^[7], archived from the original on 16 May 2024:

     tfw ur classmates reads your message and all 94 of them r-bomb it

   • 2022 June 4, u/NipNipNipNipNipDip, “Are grades finalized?”, in Reddit‎^[8], archived from the original on 2022-06-05:

     I haven't heard back from a prof on a paper, I've appealed, I've sent too many emails to feel comfortable messaging them againand^{[sic – meaning again and]} again. I wanted to know if grades are finalized, hoping that the professor was still looking at my appeal, or if I just got R bombed by a professor at university.

Usage notes

• The term briefly received media attention around early 2018 but has since faded into relative obscurity.

Related terms

• R-bombing (noun)

 

Etymology 2

Abbreviations.

Noun

R-bomb (plural R-bombs)

1. Any of various shocking or offensive words starting with the letter R.
   • 2009, Alex Coleman, Little Black Everything, Baldoyle, Dublin: Poolbeg, →ISBN, page 123:

     The thirty minutes between her dropping the R-bomb [i.e., reproduction] and the bell for the end of the lesson dragged by with glacial slowness. She might as well not have been there, she felt, for all the attention that was paid.

   • 2010, Ralph Keyes, Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, New York: Little, Brown and Company, page 212:

     When White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said a group of liberal activists were "fucking retarded," he was roundly condemned for dropping an R-bomb that way.

   • 2010 April 17, Molly Secours, “(article title)”, in HuffPost‎^[9], archived from the original on 2023-11-30:

     Cancer, John Mayer and "Please Don't Call Me Racist": Diffusing the R-Bomb

   • 2013, Hagen Engler, Marrying Black Girls for Guys Who Aren't Black, Johannesburg: MFBooks Joburg, →ISBN, page 19:

     Of course, one is in a state of constant improvement. A state of Racist Rehab, if you will. When things get messy on Facebook, and a bunch of us racists start dropping R-bombs on each other, I like to take the moral high ground and say, "I know. I'm also a racist, but I'm in recovery." In fact, it's hard to be anything else, having been raised in a country where race is the currency of any kind of success, where the class oppression common worldwide is so closely grafted to skin colour.

   • 2015, Sue Perkins, Spectacles: A Memoir, London: Michael Joseph, →ISBN, page 42:

     Yep, just to reinforce the point, she'd dropped the R-bomb. Anyone who was a child during the 1970s understands the knee-jerk horror created by the mere mention of rabies.

Usage notes

• Someone is typically said to "drop the R-bomb".

See also

• f-bomb
• n-bomb
• r-word