bullet
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbʊl.ɪt/
rhymes: -ʊlɪt
Forms: form: bullets
Etymology: From Middle English bullet (“an official tag or badge of registration or identification”), from Old French bullete, diminutive of boule (“ball”). Later influenced by Middle French boulette and French boulet.
Senses: synonyms: cap
pill
slug
glosses: A projectile, usually of metal, shot from a gun at high speed.
glosses: An entire round of unfired ammunition for a firearm, including the projectile, the cartridge casing, the propellant charge, etc.
examples: text: Then when our powers in points of ſwords are ioin’d
And cloſde in compaſſe of the killing bullet,
Though ſtraite the paſſage and the port be made,
That leads to Pallace of my brothers life,
Proud is his fortune if we pierce it not.
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i:
glosses: Ammunition for a sling or slingshot which has been manufactured for such use.
topics: media
publishing
typography
synonyms: bullet point
glosses: A printed symbol in the form of a solid circle, “•”, often used to mark items in a list.
topics: banking
business
finance
glosses: A large scheduled repayment of the principal of a loan; a balloon payment.
examples: text: John's not going to any of his top schools; he got a bullet from the last of them yesterday.
glosses: A rejection letter, as for employment, admission to a school or a competition.
glosses: One year of prison time.
examples: text: The miser, a-seeking lost gelt,
The doughboy, awaiting the battle,
May possibly know how I felt
While the long years dragged by as the dealer
As slow as the slowest of dubs,
Stuck out the last helping of tickets
'Till I lifted—the Bullet of Clubs!
ref: 1969, Robert L. Vann, The Competitor, volumes 2-3, page 135:
glosses: An ace (the playing card).
examples: text: Just as it appeared Arsenal had taken the sting out of the tie, Johnson produced a moment of outrageous quality, thundering a bullet of a left foot shot out of the blue and into the top left-hand corner of Wojciech Szczesny's net with the Pole grasping at thin air.
ref: 2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1 - 3 Arsenal”, in BBC:
glosses: Anything that is projected extremely fast.
examples: text: bullet train; bullet chess
glosses: Very fast (speedy).
examples: text: Nakamura is a different animal at 15-minute rapid and five-minute blitz and even more so at one-minute bullet, and in this match he adopted a psychological approach which paid off brilliantly.
ref: 2020 August 21, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Carlsen fights back from brink to overcome Nakamura in 38-game epic”, in The Guardian:
text: Carlsen also has been engaging in online marathons of "bullet chess," exactly the kind of attention-disrupting, energy-draining stunt contenders are supposed to avoid. In a bullet game, each player has only one minute for all the moves. The pace is so rapid the games are hard to watch, much less play.
ref: 2021 November 24, Tyler Cowen, “Chess Is an Esport Now. Get Used to It.”, in The Washington Post:
text: Even today, when they're home, the siblings indulge in a friendly game or two. "We love playing bullet games. It's a format where we make really quick moves," he says, pausing to add, "Think of it like a super over in cricket."
ref: 2022 July 27, Srinivasa Ramanujam, “'Feels like a festival': Praggnanandhaa on Chess Olympiad and meeting Rajinikanth”, in The Hindu:
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: Ellipsis of bullet chess.
topics: fishing
hobbies
lifestyle
glosses: A plumb or sinker.
qualifier: particularly in Northern Ireland
glosses: The heavy projectile thrown in a game of road bowling.
glosses: A roughly bullet-shaped sweet consisting of a cylinder of liquorice covered in chocolate.
examples: text: Would you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the Master of the Ceremonies, the promise of some momentous destiny? and that this lukewarm bullet on which they play their farces was the bull's-eye and centrepoint of all the universe?
ref: 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:
glosses: A small ball.
examples: text: A ship before Greenwich […] shot off her ordinance, one piece being charged with a bullet of stone.
ref: 1592, John Stow, The Annales of England:
glosses: A cannonball.
glosses: The fetlock of a horse.
topics: hobbies
horse-racing
horseracing
horses
lifestyle
pets
racing
sports
glosses: The best workout time at a track on a given day at a specific distance, traditionally marked by a printer's bullet.
examples: text: I'm eighteen with a bullet
Got my finger on the trigger, I'm gonna pull it
[…]
I'm high on the chart
I'm tip for the top
ref: 1975, Pete Wingfield, “Eighteen with a Bullet”:
text: Her third release hit number one in record time — “number one with a bullet” as they said in the industry — and after that, there seemed to be no stopping her.
ref: 2013, Hallee Bridgeman, A Melody for James:
glosses: A notation used on pop music charts to indicate that a song is climbing in the rankings.
Hyponyms: sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: blank bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: brass-tipped bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: double-action bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: dumdum bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: dum-dum bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: dum dum bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: rubber bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: rubber-tipped bullet
sense: Hyponyms of bullet (noun, projectile)
word: silver bullet
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: antibullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bite the bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet ant
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet ballot
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet bra
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet catch
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet chess
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet climb
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet fee
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletfest
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet graph
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-head
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-headed
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet hell
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet hole
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullethole
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletin
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletize
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet journal
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet journaling
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletless
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletlike
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet list
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet loan
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletmaker
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletmaking
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet money
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: Bulletmore
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-nose
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet payment
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet point
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-pointed
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-proof
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletproof
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-screen game
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet-shooting crossbow
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet sponge
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet time
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet trade
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet train
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet tree
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet vibrator
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet vote
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet voting
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet with someone's name on it
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bulletwood
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullet wood
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bullety
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: bumper bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: dodge a bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: get the bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: ghost bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: hook-and-bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: hyperbullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: long bullets
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: magic bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: Markowitz bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: microbullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: muck and bullets
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: nanobullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: number one with a bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: percussion bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: picket bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: plastic bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: put a band-aid on a bullet wound
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: stray bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: subbullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: sweat bullets
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: take a bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: tracer bullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: ultrabullet
sense: Terms derived from bullet (noun)
word: with a bullet