to bombard with
- phrasal verb
- /bɑmˈbɑrd wɪð/
- I feel that people are bombarded with lots of different causes that they can get involved in.
- bombarded with information
So now I'm, you know, they're bombarding me with spam.
- So now I'm, you know, they're bombarding me with spam.
- So basically we're bombarded with so much information.
- You know, people are being bombarded with more and more content.
- Your brain is being bombarded with signals from from all of those sources.
- But your idea at the beginning was like, OK, let's not bombard people with statistics and guilt.
- And there is a great deal of emotion, especially now in a world that is bombarded with stimuli.
- And so, you know, we're constantly being bombarded with kind of dysfunction.
- And we, we get sort of bombarded with, with, you know, why not Python?
Examples
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Seniors are being bombarded with conflicting information and a myriad of diverse pressures.
Academic text (1992) -
Teachers often find themselves bombarded with demands from students and parents for additional resources.
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So basically we're bombarded with so much information.
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You know, people are being bombarded with more and more content.
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We are constantly bombarded with thoughts like this.
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A day hardly passes that we are not bombarded with many different kinds of statistics.
Academic text (2007) -
There are multiple reasons why we are constantly being bombarded with messages and intrusions.
Blog text (21) -
When I say we're bombarded with information, we're bombarded with misinformation, disinformation, fake news.
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During the meeting, the team was bombarded with questions from the audience about the new project.
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As soon as the news broke, the spokesperson was bombarded with requests for statements from the press.
Synonyms
To give someone many questions or messages quickly
To annoy someone by asking for things again and again
To surround a person with many requests and questions
To give someone so much work or so many requests that they cannot cope
To send a large fast stream of questions or messages to someone
Ask someone many quick questions until they cannot answer easily
Antonyms
How Overwhelming
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'bombard' (to overwhelm or deluge) with the preposition 'with' indicating the thing used or inflicted; a learner who knows both words can infer that someone is being overwhelmed by questions/requests. This verb + with pattern is a productive, compositional construction (and has parallels in other languages), so the sense is transparent to B1 learners who know the constituents.
Etymology
Bombard with may come from the image of soldiers who would bombard a town with many stones or small bombs, hitting it again and again. That's why today bombard with means to give someone many questions or messages at once, to 'overwhelm' them.