dirty bomb

1. 1.

   an atom bomb that leaves considerable radioactive contamination

   Broaderatom bomb

Questions about dirty bomb

What does dirty bomb mean?

dirty bomb means "an atom bomb that leaves considerable radioactive contamination".

Is dirty bomb a common word?

dirty bomb is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.