A B-52 is a huge US military plane built to drop bombs. Boeing made it; the US Air Force name is the B-52 Stratofortress. It became well known in the Vietnam War and was used again in the Gulf War. It is a long, heavy aircraft with swept-back wings, made to fly very far. In news and history, “a B-52” almost always means this bomber. Though actually, the same name was later borrowed for a cocktail and for a pop group, the B-52s — both named after the plane — so you may meet those other uses. And though textbooks talk about Vietnam and the Gulf War, the US has kept flying B-52s for many decades; they are old planes that never quite left the sky.