Wiktionary

bull

See also: Bull, and Bull.

English

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A Charolais bull (sense 1)

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English bole, bul, bule, from a conflation of Old English bula (“bull, steer”) and Old Norse boli, both from Proto-Germanic *bulô (“bull”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥no-, from *bʰel- (“to blow, swell up”). Cognate with West Frisian bolle, Dutch bul, German Low German Bull, German Bulle, Swedish bulla; also Old Irish ball (“limb”), Latin follis (“bellows, leather bag”), Thracian βόλινθος (vólinthos, “wild bull”), Macedonian вол (vol, "ox"), Slovene vol ("ox"), Albanian buall (“buffalo”) or related bolle (“testicles”), Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós, “penis”).

Noun

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A statue of a Spanish fighting bull or toro de lidia in Tordesillas, Valladolid, Spain

bull (countable and uncountable, plural bulls)

  1. An adult male of domesticated cattle or oxen.
    1. Specifically, one that is uncastrated.
    2. (loosely) Any bovine of an aggressive or long-horned breed regardless of age and sex.
  2. A male of domesticated cattle or oxen of any age.
  3. Any adult male bovine.
  4. An adult male of certain large mammals, such as whales, elephants, camels and seals.
  5. A large, strong man.
  6. (finance) An investor who buys (commodities or securities) in anticipation of a rise in prices.
    • 1821, Bank of England, The Bank - The Stock Exchange - The Bankers ..., page 64:
      This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock. The fact is the reverse; it is a bear accompt, but the bears, unable to deliver their stock, have conjointly banged the market, and pocketed the tickets, to defeat the rise and loss that would have ensued to them by their buying on a rising price on the accompt day […]
    • 2023 December 9, Scott Chipolina, “Unlikely resurgence for bitcoin as bulls bet on Wall Street adoption”, in FT Weekend, Companies & Markets, page 15:
      Bulls are hoping the prosecutions draw a line under the sector's troubled past and will allow it to tap billions of dollars of cash from Wall Street.
  7. (US, slang) A policeman; a detective; a railroad security guard.
  8. (LGBTQ, slang) An elderly lesbian.[1]
  9. (UK, historical, obsolete slang) A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings.
  10. (UK) Clipping of bullseye.
    • 1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 219:
      A second good game was to cannon one galloping camel with another, and crash it into a near tree. Either the tree went down (valley trees in the light Hejaz soil were notably unstable things) or the rider was scratched and torn; or, best of all, he was swept quite out of his saddle, and left impaled on a thorny branch, if not dropped violently to the ground. This counted as a bull, and was very popular with everyone but him.
    1. (military, firearms) The central portion of a target, inside the inner and magpie.
  11. (Philadelphia, slang) A man or boy (derived from the Philadelphia English pronunciation of “boy”, which is practically a homophone of “bull”)
  12. (uncountable, informal, euphemistic, slang) Clipping of bullshit.
  13. A man who has sex with someone else's partner, with the consent of both.
    Coordinate terms: cuckold, cuckquean, cuckcake
    • 2018 June 1, Holly O'Mahony, “‘Stag’ men love watching other guys have sex with their wives… but it’s not cuckolding”, in The Sun‎[1]:
      The Vixen, often known as ‘Hotwife’, has sex with the encouragement of her husband or boyfriend with the Bull (that’s the guy who is servicing her). Another scenario is that the Vixen has sex with a Bull outside of the couple’s shared abode. Then she comes home and recounts all the details in a blow-by-blow description to turn the Stag on.
  14. (obsolete) A drink made by pouring water into a cask that previously held liquor.
  15. (slang, uncountable) Beef.
    • 1949, Stephen Peter Llewellyn, Journey Towards Christmas, page 142:
      Meanwhile the Tommies had discovered several large tins of ham in the captured lorry. 'That,' said the big Nazi, 'is for our tea.' 'No,' said a Tommy sergeant-major. 'That's for our tea. For you, chummy, we've kept a nice bit of bull.'
Synonyms
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Antonyms
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  • (antonym(s) of “finance: investor who sells in anticipation of a fall in prices”): bear
Coordinate terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective

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bull (not comparable)

  1. Large and strong, like a bull.
    Synonyms: beefy, hunky, robust
    Antonyms: feeble, puny, weak
  2. (attributive, of large mammals) Adult male.
    Synonym: male
    Antonym: female
    a bull elephant
  3. (finance) Of a market in which prices are rising (compare bear).
    Antonym: bear
  4. Stupid.
    Synonym: stupid
Translations
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Verb

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bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. (intransitive, often with into or through) To force oneself (in a particular direction); to move aggressively.
    He bulled his way in.
  2. (agriculture, intransitive, of a cow or heifer) To be in heat; to be ready for mating with a bull.
  3. (agriculture, transitive, of a bull) To mate with (a cow or heifer).
  4. (finance, transitive) To endeavour to raise the market price of.
    to bull railroad bonds
  5. (finance, transitive) To endeavour to raise prices in.
    to bull the market
Translations
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Derived terms

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(terms derived from the adj., noun, or verb bull (etymology 1)):

Etymology 2

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From Middle English bulle, from Old French bulle, from Latin bulla, from Gaulish. Doublet of bull (“bubble”) and bulla.

Noun

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bull (plural bulls)

  1. A papal bull, an official document or edict from the Pope.
  2. A seal affixed to a document, especially a document from the Pope.
Translations
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Verb

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bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. (dated) To publish in a papal bull. [17th century]

Etymology 3

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From Middle English bull, bul, boule (“falsehood, deceit”), probably from Old French boul, boule, bole (“fraud, deceit, cunning”), from Old French bouler, boler (“to deceive, delude, lure, take in”), from Middle Low German bôlen (“to woo, court”), related to German buhlen (“to woo”), English bully. Often reanalyzed by surface analysis to be an expurgated clipping of bullshit.

Noun

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bull (uncountable)

  1. A lie.
  2. (euphemistic, informal) Nonsense.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. To mock; to cheat.
  2. (intransitive) To lie, to tell untruths.
  3. (UK, military) To polish boots to a high shine.

Etymology 4

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From Middle English bowle, boule, from Old French boule (“ball”), from Latin bulla (“round swelling”), of Gaulish origin. Doublet of bull (“papal bull”) and bulla.

Noun

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bull (plural bulls)

  1. (obsolete) A bubble. [16th century]

References

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  1. ^ A. F. Niemoeller, "A Glossary of Homosexual Slang," Fact 2, no. 1 (Jan-Feb 1965): 25

Catalan

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Deverbal from bullir.

Noun

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bull m (plural bulls)

  1. boiling
  2. effervescence

Etymology 2

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Inherited from Latin botulus (“sausage”).

Noun

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bull m (plural bulls)

  1. a type of pork sausage
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Etymology 3

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Verb

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bull

  1. inflection of bullir:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

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Cimbrian

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Etymology

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Reduced form of bóol (“well”).

Adverb

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bull (comparative péssor, superlative dar péste)

  1. (Sette Comuni) well
    Iime bull hölfasto, miar net, sbaar? ― He's helping you well, but not me, right?

References

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  • “bull” in Martalar, Umberto Martello, Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo

French

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Etymology

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From a clipped form of French bulldozer, from American English bulldozer.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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bull m (plural bulls)

  1. (construction) bulldozer
    Synonym: bulldozer

Synonyms

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Icelandic

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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bull n (genitive singular bulls, no plural)

  1. nonsense, gibberish

Declension

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    Declension of bull
n-s singular
indefinite definite
nominative bull bullið
accusative bull bullið
dative bulli bullinu
genitive bulls bullsins

Synonyms

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  • bulla (“to talk nonsense, to boil”)
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