different between blip vs blimp

English

Etymology

Onomatopoeic.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /bl?p/

Noun

blip (plural blips)

1. (electronics) A small dot registered on electronic equipment, such as a radar or oscilloscope screen.
2. A short sound of a single pitch, usually electronically generated.
3. (by extension) A brief and usually minor aberration or deviation from what is expected or normal.
4. (Internet, historical) An individual message or document in the Google Wave software framework.
   • 2010, Gina Trapani, Adam Pash, The Complete Guide to Google Wave (page 51)

     When a participant has full access permissions to a wave, he or she can change the contents of all blips and reply within or after blips.

   • 2010, Andres Ferrate, Google Wave: Up and Running (page 87)

     Although the wiki-like editing capabilities of Google Wave represent a valuable feature, there is some debate about whether participants should edit other participants' blips or their own blips.

Translations

Verb

blip (third-person singular simple present blips, present participle blipping, simple past and past participle blipped)

1. (intransitive, informal) To change state abruptly, such as between off and on or dark and light, sometimes implying motion.
2. (transitive) Synonym of bleep (“to replace offending words in a broadcast recording with a tone”)
   • 2003, Harry Castleman, Walter J. Podrazik, Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television (page 155)

     […] even walking off his own show once after an NBC censor had arbitrarily blipped a mildly risque joke from the day's tape.

Derived terms

• blip out

English

Etymology

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. Conningham 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.”

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) enPR: bl?mp IPA^(key): /bl?mp/
• Rhymes: -?mp

Noun

blimp (plural blimps)

1. (aviation) An airship constructed with a non-rigid lifting agent container.
   • 2004 February 16&23, The New Yorker:

     The Goodyear blimp over Giants Stadium

2. (by extension) Any large airborne inflatable.
   • 2018 July 14, Trump baby balloon: giant blimp takes to the sky above Edinburgh after being transported from London, Evening Standard:

     a 6 meter high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies

3. (slang) An obese person.
4. A person similar to the cartoon character Colonel Blimp; a pompous, reactionary British man.
5. A soundproof cover for a video camera.

Synonyms

• barrage balloon
• Gossage
• nonrigid

Hypernyms

• airship
• dirigible

Derived terms

• Blimp
• blimpish

Translations

Verb

blimp (third-person singular simple present blimps, present participle blimping, simple past and past participle blimped)

1. (slang, intransitive) To expand like a blimp or balloon; to become fat.

   After college, she started blimping and could no longer wear her favorite little black dress.

   Over a few years the software had blimped into typical bloatware.

2. (transitive) To fit (a video camera) with a soundproof cover.

Derived terms

• self-blimped

Synonyms

• blimp out
• blimp up

Translations

See also

• airship
• balloon
• dirigible
• zeppelin, Zeppelin

Further reading

• blimp at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “blimp”, in Online Etymology Dictionary