blimp
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blimp¹
- /ˈblɪmp/ US, UK
Rhymes with -ɪmp
Where it comes from
Origin not entirely certain. However, most historians believe that it is onomatopoeia for the sound a blimp makes when thumped. Although there is some disagreement among historians, credit for coining the term is usually given to Lt. A. D. Cunningham of the British Royal Navy in 1915.
There is an often repeated, but false, alternative explanation for the term. The erroneous story is that at some time in the early 20th century, the United States military had two classes for airships: Type A-rigid and Type B-limp, hence “blimp”. In fact, A. D. Topping reports on the “Etymology of ‘Blimp’”, in the AAHS Journal, Winter 1963, that:
: “there was no American ‘A-class’ of airships as such—all military aircraft, heavier or lighter-than-air were designated with ‘A’ until the appearance of B-class airships in May 1917. There was an American B airship—but there seems to be no record of any official designation of non-rigids as ‘limp’. Further, according to the Oxford Dictionary, the first appearance of the word in print was in 1916, in England, a year before the first B-class airship.”
noun blimps
-
An airship constructed with a nonrigid lifting agent container.
2004 February 16&23, The New Yorker
Similar: barrage balloon, Gossage, nonrigid
- Any large airborne inflatable. a 6 meter high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies
- An obese person.
- A person similar to the cartoon character Colonel Blimp; a pompous, reactionary British man.
-
A soundproof cover for a video camera.
You can create your own blimp or barney with anything that will deaden the camera noise, such as a changing bag, foam rubber, […]
Similar: barney
Blimp²
Where it comes from
From Colonel Blimp, a comic character created by David Low and first appearing in London's Evening Standard in April 1934.
noun Blimps
- A person considered similar to Colonel Blimp in appearance, thought, or expression, particularly (historical or archaic, derogatory) a reactionary middle-class Englishman during the Interwar Period. One was the military and imperialist middle class, generally nicknamed the Blimps, and the other the left-wing intelligentsia.
Translations
Every language
noun airship
| Español | blimp, dirigible no rígido |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 소형 연식 비행선 sohyeong yeonsik bihaengseon |
| 日本語 | 飛行船 hikōsen, 軟式飛行船 nanshiki hikōsen |
| 中文 | 軟式小型飛船 /软式小型飞船 ruǎnshìxiǎoxíngfēichuán |
| Português | dirigível |
| Français | ballon dirigeable, dirigeable |
| Deutsch | Zeppelin, Prallluftschiff, Blimp |
| Italiano | dirigibile floscio |
| Română | dirijabil |
| Русский | мя́гкий дирижа́бль mjáxkij dirižáblʹ, дирижа́бль dirižáblʹ |
| العربية | مُنْطَاد ذُو مُحَرِّك munṭād ḏū muḥarrik |
| עברית | סְפִינַת אֲוִיר, ספינת אוויר sfinat avir |
verb become fat
| Română | unfla |
|---|
Talk about this word "blimp." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/blimp. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. blimp. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/blimp "blimp." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/blimp.Cite this
@misc{blimp_2026,
title = {blimp},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/blimp},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
