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The word bomba can translate to English as any of the following, depending on the region:
That always confused me, as most of those are very different concepts to me as a native English speaker. How did a single Spanish word come to mean all those things? What is the word's etymology?
I think most of the meanings you outline are variations on two basic meanings, namely "bomb" and "pump". For example, "gas station" and "fire station" seem to be obvious extensions of the word "pump", since both stations are based on a pump.
The use of "bomba" meaning a piece of news is, IMO, figurative. In English we sometimes refer to a sensational news item as a "bombshell". Back in the 1940s, "bombshell" also was used to refer to an exceptionally pretty girl.
With regard to a single word having a multitude of meanings, English is probably the worst language of them all.
The common theme of "bomba" seems to be something that "explodes," or "sprays."
That is certainly true of "bomb." But it can also apply to a "pump" that "sprays.'
Fire trucks and stations are the "homes" of these pumps that spray, and firemen are called "bomberos" in Spanish.
This meaning could be figuratively true of "news," or "bubbles."
I can think of so many words with such wide, strange arrays of meanings that to me, the multiple meanings of "bomba" is really nothing special. In most cases, an imaginative mind can extrapolate why a word has taken on an extended, possibly figurative meaning with no problem.
Consider "major piece of news". The idea of something extremely urgent or important has figurative ties with explosions, bombs, etc. in every language I'm familiar with. "Bubble" might come from the stereotypical shape of bombs, or the fact that a bubble pops like a bomb explodes, etc.
Checking an ethimological dictionary, it seems the word 'bomba' comes from the French word 'bombe', which comes from the Italian 'bomba' and the original latin word, 'bombus' (which probably comes from the Greek 'bombos' The original meaning was 'a deep and intense loud sound'. So, that's the origin of the bomb meaning of the word. The other meanings (pump, having fun, etc) probably have an onomatopoeic origin from indoeuropean and languages derived from it (for example, 'bumbeti' in Lituanian, 'bumba' in Scandinavian)
