bull

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large adult male of the cattle family

   The farmer kept the bull in a separate field.

2. 2
   noun

   Nonsense; foolish or untrue talk

   Everything he said about the deal was just bull.

3. 3
   noun

   An official document or order issued by the Pope

   The papal bull condemned the military action.

Common collocations

• bull terrier Noun + noun

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.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images