bull
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Pronunciation
Etymology 1
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
bull (countable and uncountable, plural bulls)
- An adult male of domesticated cattle or oxen.
- Specifically, one that is uncastrated.
- (loosely) Any bovine of an aggressive or long-horned breed regardless of age and sex.
- A male of domesticated cattle or oxen of any age.
- Any adult male bovine.
- An adult male of certain large mammals, such as whales, elephants, camels and seals.
- A large, strong man.
- (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.
- (US, slang) A policeman; a detective; a railroad security guard.
- 2021, Rickie Lee Jones, Last Chance Texaco, Grive Press 2022, p. 93:
- You never waited until the train stopped to get off. The railroad bulls were waiting at the stops searching for freeloaders.
- 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
- The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
- 2021, Rickie Lee Jones, Last Chance Texaco, Grive Press 2022, p. 93:
- (LGBTQ, slang) An elderly lesbian.[1]
- (UK, historical, obsolete slang) A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings.
- 1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words:
- Half-a-crown is known as an alderman, half a bull, half a tusheroon, and a madza caroon; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a bull, or a caroon, or a cartwheel, or a coachwheel, or a thick-un, or a tusheroon.
- (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.
- (Philadelphia, slang) A man or boy (derived from the Philadelphia English pronunciation of “boy”, which is practically a homophone of “bull”)
- (uncountable, informal, euphemistic, slang) Clipping of bullshit.
- A man who has sex with someone else's partner, with the consent of both.
- 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:
- 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.
- (obsolete) A drink made by pouring water into a cask that previously held liquor.
- (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
- (cattle): gentleman cow (obsolete, euphemistic)
- (slang: male person): guy, dude, bro, cat
- (slang: policeman): cop, copper, pig (derogatory), rozzer (British). See also Thesaurus:police officer
Antonyms
- (antonym(s) of “finance: investor who sells in anticipation of a fall in prices”): bear
Coordinate terms
Translations
uncastrated adult male bovine
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adult male animal
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large, strong man
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finance: investor who buys in anticipation of a rise in prices
slang: policeman
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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
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Adjective
bull (not comparable)
- Large and strong, like a bull.
- (attributive, of large mammals) Adult male.
- (finance) Of a market in which prices are rising (compare bear).
- Antonym: bear
- Stupid.
- Synonym: stupid
Translations
large and strong
male
Verb
bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)
- (intransitive, often with into or through) To force oneself (in a particular direction); to move aggressively.
- He bulled his way in.
- (agriculture, intransitive, of a cow or heifer) To be in heat; to be ready for mating with a bull.
- (agriculture, transitive, of a bull) To mate with (a cow or heifer).
- (finance, transitive) To endeavour to raise the market price of.
- to bull railroad bonds
- (finance, transitive) To endeavour to raise prices in.
- to bull the market
Translations
polish boots to a high shine
mate with (a cow or heifer)
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Derived terms
(terms derived from the adj., noun, or verb bull (etymology 1)):
- Adoribull
- Banbury story of a cock and a bull
- Banbury story of a cock and bull
- big as bull-beef
- blue bull
- Brahminy bull
- brazen bull
- bull and cow
- bull ant
- bullbaiting, bull-baiting
- bull bar
- bull-bitch
- bullbleep
- bull butter
- bull con
- bullcrap
- bullcrud
- bull-dagger
- bull daisy
- bull denim
- bulldog
- bulldoze
- bulldozer
- bulldung
- bull dust
- bulldust
- bull dyke
- bull elephant
- buller
- bullet
- bullfaced
- bull feast
- bull fiddle
- bull fiddler
- bullfight
- bullfighter
- bull-fighting
- bullfighting
- bullfinch, bull-finch
- bull-fly
- bullfrog
- bull-fuck
- bullfuck
- bullgine
- bull gravy
- bullhead
- bull-headed
- bullheaded
- bull headed
- bullhook
- bull-horn
- bull horn
- bullhorn
- bull in a china shop
- bullish
- bull kelp
- bull ladle
- bull-like
- bull market
- bull-mobile
- Bull Moose
- bullneck
- bullnecked
- bull-necked
- bullnose
- bullnosed
- bullock
- bullpen
- bullplop
- bullpoo
- bullpoop
- bullpucky
- bull pump
- bullpup
- bull-pup
- bullrail
- bull rail
- bull ring
- bullroarer
- bull roast
- bull rope
- bull run
- bull runner
- bull-running
- bullscheisse
- bullscutter
- bull session
- bullseye
- bull shark
- bullshit
- bullshot
- bullsnake
- bull snake
- bullsnot
- bullspeak
- bull-speak
- bull stag
- bullswool
- bull terrier
- bull-terrier
- bull thistle
- bull-thrower
- bull trap
- bull trout
- bull up
- bull week
- bullwhack
- bullwhacker
- bull wheel
- bull-whip
- bullwhip
- bullwort
- Bulstrode
- charge like a wounded bull
- chrysobull
- cock-and-bull story
- crusade bull
- fit as a Mallee bull
- golden bull
- grab the bull by the horns
- hog bull
- Irish bull
- like a bull at a gate
- like a bull in a china shop
- load of bull
- mechanical bull
- mess with the bull and you get the horns
- nearly never bulled a cow
- permabull
- pit bull
- pit bull terrier
- red flag in front of a bull
- red flag to a bull
- red rag to a bull
- scrub bull
- semibull
- shoot the bull
- stingbull
- strong as a bull
- superbull
- take the bull by the horns
- throw the bull
- throw the bull around
- trust someone as far as one could fling a bull by the tail
- Turnbull
- ugly as bull-beef
- useful as tits on a bull
- useless as tits on a bull
Etymology 2
From Middle English bulle, from Old French bulle, from Latin bulla, from Gaulish. Doublet of bull (“bubble”) and bulla.
Noun
bull (plural bulls)
- A papal bull, an official document or edict from the Pope.
- A seal affixed to a document, especially a document from the Pope.
Translations
document
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seal
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Verb
bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)
- (dated) To publish in a papal bull. [17th century]
Etymology 3
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
bull (uncountable)
- A lie.
- (euphemistic, informal) Nonsense.
Synonyms
- (nonsense): See also Thesaurus:nonsense
Derived terms
Translations
nonsense
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Verb
bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)
Etymology 4
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
bull (plural bulls)
References
- A. F. Niemoeller, "A Glossary of Homosexual Slang," Fact 2, no. 1 (Jan-Feb 1965): 25
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