sonic boom

1. 1.

   an explosive sound caused by the shock wave of an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound

   “a sonic boom follows an aircraft as a wake follows a ship”

   Broadershock wave

Questions about sonic boom

What does sonic boom mean?

sonic boom means "an explosive sound caused by the shock wave of an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound".

Is sonic boom a common word?

sonic boom 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.