time bomb

Noun

time bomb (plural time bombs)

1. A bomb that has a mechanism such that detonation can be preset to a particular time.
   • At 9.40 a.m. on Bank Holiday Monday, August 5, a ganger found what was thought to be a time bomb at a level crossing at Tempsford, near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, […] Inside one box was a brick; the other contained the works of an old alarm clock.1957 October, “Notes and News: Bomb Hoax at Tempsford”, in Railway Magazine, pages 735, 736
2. A malicious program designed to perform a destructive action at a certain date or time.
   • Donald Gene Burleson was prosecuted on felony charges for planting a time bomb that, shortly after he was fired, deleted more than 168,000 brokerage records of USPA & IRA in Fort Worth, Texas.1994, Peter G. Neumann, Computer-Related Risks, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN
3. (figuratively) A situation that threatens to have disastrous consequences at some future time.
   • Even so, they managed to morph the recent European parliamentary elections into a time bomb and plant it under their country’s own future.2014 June 6, Françoise Fressoz, “France’s Ticking Time Bomb”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   • Someone must explain to Sunak about the time bomb ticking beneath his £1,000 loafers.2023 May 31, Nigel Harris, “Comment: GBR now! We have no Plan B”, in RAIL, number 984, page 3

   Synonyms:

   ticking bomb, ticking time bomb