anti-personnel bomb
- noun
- /ˌæntiˈpɜrsənəl bɑm/
- NSFW
- The military deployed an anti-personnel bomb to target enemy troops in the area.
Examples
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The army used an anti-personnel bomb to prevent enemy soldiers from advancing.
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Fragments from the anti-personnel bomb caused injuries over a wide area.
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Many international organizations advocate for the ban of the anti-personnel bomb due to its impact on civilians.
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The anti-personnel bomb exploded.
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Don't use anti-personnel bombs!
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During the conflict, reports emerged of the use of anti-personnel bombs in civilian-populated zones.
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An anti-personnel bomb can severely injure anyone within its blast radius by scattering sharp fragments.
Synonyms
A bomb that breaks into many small fast metal pieces to hit soldiers and vehicles
A weapon made to injure or kill people rather than damage machines
A weapon that explodes and sends metal pieces at high speed to hurt people and damage things nearby
How Lethal
- Formal
- NSFW
Surface Forms
Morphology
anti-personnel + bomb
The meaning is compositionally clear: anti- (against) + personnel (people/staff) + bomb (explosive device) yields a bomb intended to harm people rather than materiel. This basic sense is readily inferable by a learner who knows the constituent parts (even if the technical detail about fragmentation is specialised), and the construction is cross-linguistically transparent.
Etymology
Anti-personnel bomb: The name anti-personnel bomb comes from a simple idea: anti means 'against', personnel means 'people' or 'soldiers', and bomb is an explosive, so the name means a bomb made to hurt people. That's why today it means a weapon meant to injure or kill people.