bully

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A person who deliberately frightens or hurts weaker people

   A playground bully pushed the little girl off the swing.

2. 2
   verb

   To frighten or hurt someone weaker, often repeatedly

   He was bullied at school for being small.

3. 3
   verb

   To force someone to do something by threatening them

   They bullied me into giving them my lunch money.

From 1530, as a term of endearment, probably a diminutive ( + -y) of Dutch boel (“lover; brother”), from Middle Dutch boel, boele (“brother; lover”), from Old Dutch *buolo, from Proto-Germanic *bōlô (compare Middle Low German bôle (“brother”), Middle High German buole (“brother; close relative; close relation”) (whence German Buhle (“lover”)), Old English Bōla, Bōlla (personal name), diminutive of expressive *bō- (“brother, father”). Compare also Latvian bālinš (“brother”). More at boy. The term acquired a negative connotation during the 17th century; first ‘noisy, blustering fellow’ then ‘a p…

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