bound

Meanings

Verb

• Past of bind
• To surround a territory or other geographical entity; to form the boundary of.
• To be the bound of.
• To leap, move by jumping.
• To cause to leap.
• To rebound; to bounce.
• To cause to rebound; to throw so that it will rebound; to bounce.

Adjective

• Obliged (to).
• That cannot stand alone as a free word.
• Constrained by a quantifier.
• Constipated; costive.
• Confined or restricted to a certain place; e.g. railbound.
• Unable to move in certain conditions; e.g. snowbound.
• Ready, prepared.
• Ready to start or go (to); moving in the direction (of).
• Very likely (to), certain to

Noun

• A boundary, the border which one must cross in order to enter or leave a territory.
• A value which is known to be greater or smaller than a given set of values.
• A sizeable jump, great leap.
• A spring from one foot to the other in dancing.
• A bounce; a rebound.

Related

Opposite words

• free

Narrower meaning words

• dynamic-bound
• fogbound
• inbound
• late-bound
• outbound
• railbound
• snowbound
• soulbound
• strikebound
• timebound, time-bound
• weatherbound
• weather-bound
• wheelchair-bound
• wheelchairbound

Origin

• From Middle English bound, bund and bounden, bunden, ibunden, ȝebunden, from Old English and bunden, ġebunden respectively. See bind.
• From Middle English bound, bownde, alternation (with -d partly for euphonic effect and partly by association with Etymology 1 above) of Middle English boun, from Old Norse búinn, past participle of búa.
• From Middle English bounde, from Old French bunne, from Medieval Latin bodina, earlier butina
• From Middle English bounden, from the noun (see above).
• From Middle English *bounden (attested as bounten), from French bondir; perhaps from Late Latin bombitāre, present active infinitive of bombitō, frequentative verb, from Latin bombus.