Word: bull Part of Speech: noun Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-der. Proto-Germanic *bulô Old English bula ▲ Proto-Germanic *bulô Old Norse bolibor. Middle English bole English bull 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”), Albanian bolle (“testicles”), Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós, “penis”). Of sense 11, (a man or boy), derived from the Philadelphia English pronunciation of boy, which is practically a homophone of bull. Pronunciation: /bʊl/, /bʉl/ 1. An adult male, specifically: Labels: countable, uncountable 2. An adult male, specifically: Labels: broadly, countable, uncountable 3. An adult male, specifically: Labels: countable, uncountable 4. An adult male, specifically: Labels: countable, uncountable 5. An adult male, specifically: Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The quick eyes of a female caught sight of him first. With a barking guttural she called the attention of the others. Several huge bulls stood erect to get a better view of the intruder. With bared fangs and bristling necks they advanced slowly toward him, with deep-throated, ominous growls. Example: The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. I rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. There were seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing thousands on the beach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. "I know men club them," I said, trying to reassure myself and gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared on his fore-flippers and regarding me intently. "But the question is, How do they club them?" 6. An adult male, specifically: Labels: slang, uncountable Example: 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.' 7. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: countable, uncountable 8. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: 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 […] Example: 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. 9. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: US, countable, slang, uncountable Example: You never waited until the train stopped to get off. The railroad bulls were waiting at the stops searching for freeloaders. Example: 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. 10. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: countable, slang, uncountable 11. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: 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. 12. A person, compared to the animal. Labels: Philadelphia, countable, slang, uncountable 13. A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings. Labels: UK, countable, historical, obsolete, slang, uncountable Example: 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. 14. Clipping of bullseye. Labels: UK, abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, countable, uncountable Example: 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. 15. Clipping of bullseye. Labels: UK, countable, uncountable 16. Clipping of bullshit. Labels: abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, euphemistic, informal, slang, uncountable 17. A drink made by pouring water into a cask that previously held liquor. Labels: countable, obsolete, uncountable