bond
Pluralbonds
Pluralbonds
- 1A document recording a long-term debt that obligates the issuer to pay interest when due and to repay the principal at maturity.
Investors bought the ten-year bond expecting steady interest payments.
The city issued bonds to finance the new bridge.
UsageOften named by issuer: government bonds, corporate bonds. A borrower issues them and investors buy and hold them.
Note
The investor's bond turns a loan into something that can be bought and held. The issuer is the borrower and the holder is the lender. What the holder may claim is often set out in a separate legal document, the indenture, and not on the certificate alone. Bonds have long come in two forms, registered and bearer, though bearer bonds are now rare.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- A bond makes a loan into an investment that can be bought and held. cfainstitute.org
- The issuer is the borrower and the holder is the lender. investor.gov
- An indenture often sets out bondholders' rights, but some governmental issues use a bond resolution instead. msrb.org
- Registered and bearer bonds are longstanding forms. oig.treasury.gov
- Bearer bonds are now rare. oig.treasury.gov
- 2An emotional connection or tie that holds two or more people together, as in a friendship.
The bond between the twins deepened over years of shared experience.
Years of working side by side created a bond among the crew.
UsageA bond between or among people, or a bond of friendship or trust. Bonds form, deepen and break.
Similarconnection, tie, link, attachment
Note
This sense is often built as "the bond of" something, naming what holds people together or the group it unites: the bond of friendship, Edmund Burke's "common bond of mankind" (1792), Joseph Conrad's "bond of the sea" in Heart of Darkness (1899).
- 3To form a friendship or emotional connection with another person.
The teammates bonded during the long training camp.
Children bond more easily when they share daily routines.
UsageBond with someone, often over a shared interest or during a shared time: they bonded over music.
Note
Where the emotional tie names the link itself, this verb names how it comes about, which is why it is so often paired with while, during or over.
- 4A link or force that holds neighboring atoms or ions together, as in a molecule or a crystal.
A double bond forms when two atoms share two pairs of electrons.
Enzymes in the gut break the bonds that hold large food molecules together.
Note
This is chemistry's word for what holds a molecule together. Much of organic chemistry is about how bonds to carbon form and break. Chemists count and classify bonds as single or double, covalent or ionic, and they speak of bonds forming and breaking. The verb to bond with describes the same link from the atom's side.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Chemical bonds hold atoms together in molecules. openstax.org
- Organic chemistry studies the formation and breaking of bonds involving carbon. openstax.org
- Bonds can be classified as single or double. openstax.org
- Covalent and ionic bonds are recognized types of chemical bond. openstax.org
- Chemical bonds form and break. openstax.org
- 5To join two things or materials firmly together, for example with glue, cement or a binding.
Strong adhesives bond metal to glass without any screws.
They bonded the laminate to the countertop under heat and pressure.
UsageBond one thing to another, or bond two things together: bond metal to glass.
- 6A sum pledged or paid to a court to secure the release of an arrested person pending trial.
He was released after posting a bond of ten thousand dollars.
The defendant skipped town and forfeited the bond.
UsageYou post a bond to be released and forfeit it by running away. A person released this way is out on bond.
Similarbail
Note
In legal talk and news reports, "bail bond" is often cut to a single word. The verbs that go with it are post and forfeit: once the bond is posted the prisoner is released, and a defendant who runs forfeits it. Someone released this way is "out on bond," the phrase Victoria Bekiempis uses of Ellison in 2023. The matching verb belongs to the same courtroom vocabulary.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Posting the required bond secures release from custody. moept.uscourts.gov
- Absconding and failing to appear entails bond forfeiture. flsenate.gov
- Bekiempis used the quoted phrase about Ellison in 2023. theguardian.com
- 7A signed legal document, or deed, in which someone formally promises to pay a sum of money or to carry out the terms of a contract, including the debt certificate called a debenture.
The firm posted a surety bond to back its contractual commitments.
Before work could begin, the builder had to sign a bond promising to finish the bridge on time or pay the city for the delay.
Note
The broader legal idea behind the debt security is any formal written undertaking to pay a sum of money or carry out a contract, such as a surety or performance bond.
- 8
- 9
- 10To guarantee or secure a financial risk by taking on legal responsibility for it.
No surety company would bond the contractor after two of his projects were left unfinished.
The agency bonds every employee who handles client funds.
UsageMost often in the passive: a bonded contractor, staff who are bonded. The requirement itself is bonding: a job that requires bonding.
Similarinsure, guarantee, underwrite
Note
A contractor or employee is bonded, meaning someone stands as guarantor against their failure. David Brill noted in Gay Community News in 1979 that a criminal record can stand in the way.
- 11To join with another atom through a chemical bond, as in forming a molecule or compound.
Carbon atoms bond with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen to form organic molecules.
Chlorine bonds with sodium to produce common table salt.
UsageUsually with or to: chlorine bonds with sodium; each hydrogen atom bonds to the carbon.
Note
Chemists say an atom bonds with or to another: chlorine bonds with sodium to make table salt, and each hydrogen atom bonds to the carbon. Even gold can be made to bond with other elements under unusual conditions. One atom can bond with several others at once, and each link that results is the chemical bond.
- 12A binding agreement or solemn covenant between parties.
Shake on it. As far as I'm concerned, my word is my bond.
In the old trading towns, a handshake sealed a bond as binding as any written contract.
UsageMostly in set phrases: my word is my bond, meaning my promise is as good as a contract, and the bonds of matrimony.
Less common meanings
- 13To secure a person's release from custody by posting a bail bond.
A local agent bonded the defendant out within hours.
Families often scramble to bond a relative out before arraignment.
UsageUsually with out: bond someone out of jail, or simply bond out.
Similarbail
Note
A plantation owner can bond a man out of jail, or the accused can simply bond out. The phrase appears in a United States Senate report of 1877. It is still in use in Elaine J. Lawless's Women Escaping Violence (2001). It is the verb behind the bail bond.
- 14A pattern of bricklaying, usually one in which the bricks of each row overlap the joints below to give the wall strength.
The warehouse walls were laid in Flemish bond, with long and short bricks alternating along every row.
A running bond is the simplest arrangement, with each brick offset by half its length.
Note
A mason's term, usually with a name in front: English bond, Flemish bond, running or stretcher bond. Each names a different way of overlapping the courses so that no vertical joint runs straight up the wall. Such work as a whole is also called bondwork, and the bricklaying verb is the act of laying it.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- English bond, Flemish bond and running bond are named bricklaying arrangements. gobrick.com
- Running bond and stretcher bond are alternative names for the same arrangement. en.wikipedia.org
- These arrangements overlap successive courses to interrupt continuous vertical joints. haverstrawbrickmuseum.org
- Bondwork is another term for bond in the bricklaying sense. en.wiktionary.org
- The bricklaying verb bond means to lay bricks in a particular pattern. en.wiktionary.org
- 15A moral or political duty or obligation that binds a person to act.
The bond of allegiance that tied him to the crown proved stronger than his sympathy for the rebels.
The oath created a bond of allegiance between the knight and his lord.
Similarobligation, duty
Note
Here duty takes an exact, measured form, as in Shakespeare's King Lear: "I love your majesty / According to my bond, nor more nor less." A bond in this sense is what one owes, neither more nor less. That places it closer to obligation than to the emotional tie. It also makes "according to my bond" a phrase of strict duty, not affection.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- King Lear is by William Shakespeare. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- The quotation occurs in King Lear; Cordelia speaks it to Lear. The quoted wording is confirmed by the Quarto version. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- 16
- 17A partial payment made to assure a provider of the customer's sincerity in buying, forfeited if the purchase is not completed.
Anyone bidding on the land had to put up a bond of ten percent before the auction began.
When the winning bidder failed to complete the purchase, the auction house kept his bond.
Similardeposit
- 18A high-quality, durable writing paper, used especially for letters and formal documents.
The contract was printed on cream-colored bond.
He preferred to write his letters on fine bond.
UsageOften with no a, like other kinds of paper: printed on cream-colored bond.
Note
A clipped form of "bond paper," with the second word simply dropped. The name points back to the debt certificate, the kind of document such paper was made for.
- 19The condition of goods stored in a bonded warehouse while payment of duties or taxes is suspended.
The shipment remained in bond for three months awaiting customs clearance.
Cargo kept in bond can be re-exported without duty ever being charged.
UsageUsually in the phrase in bond: goods held in bond, whiskey bottled in bond, with no a and no plural.
- 20To place goods in a bonded warehouse, holding them there until the duties owed on them are paid.
The importer bonded the tobacco shipment on arrival.
Importers often bond spirits on arrival and pay the duty only when the bottles leave the warehouse.
- 21To lay bricks in an overlapping pattern that ties a wall together.
The mason bonded the courses carefully to avoid weak vertical joints.
Apprentices learn to bond brickwork before tackling decorative finishes.
- 22To make a reliable electrical connection between two conductors, or between metal parts that could become conductors.
The technician bonded the equipment frame to the grounding system.
Installers bond all exposed metalwork to prevent dangerous voltage differences.
UsageUsually followed by to: bond the frame to the grounding system.
Note
The aim is to keep exposed metal at one potential and to give fault current a safe path. That is why it covers metal never meant to carry current at all. The connector itself is also a bond, as in panel bond.
- 23A loan secured against land or buildings; a mortgage.
The couple applied for a bond to cover most of the purchase price.
Rising interest rates increased the cost of his bond considerably.
Note
In South African English, bond commonly means a mortgage loan. The mortgage sense is also recorded in Scottish usage. House purchases, lenders and repayments point to this meaning; markets, yields and issuers point to the investor's debt security.
- 24Servile or slavish; characteristic of or fitting for a slave.
Similarservile, slavish, subservient, submissive
Note
A word for a manner rather than a legal state, and it stands before its noun: bond fear is the fear proper to a slave. Its history runs downhill. Old English bōnda meant a householder or freeman, yet by Middle English bonde had come to mean a peasant or servant, and the adjective followed it down to the bearing of the unfree. In everyday writing, servile and slavish carry the same idea.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Bond fear illustrates the sense of bond meaning befitting a slave. archive.org
- Bond descends through Middle English bonde, meaning peasant or servant, from Old English bōnda, meaning householder or freeman; the servile adjective belongs to this development. en.wiktionary.org
- 25A heavy copper wire or rod that connects adjacent rails of an electric railway, forming part of the track's electrical circuit.
- 26Someone held in bondage as a serf or vassal, owing service to a lord or other superior.
- 27Held under the feudal tenure known as bondage, binding the holder to services owed to a lord.
- 28A peasant or low-born commoner; a churl.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Proto-Germanic *bandaz/*bandiz lies behind Old English 'beand'/'bænd'/'bend' (bond, chain, fetter, band), which gave Middle English 'bond', a variant form of 'band'. Dutch, German, and Swedish 'band' are cognates, and 'bind' is related.
Proto-Germanic *būwandz (dweller) is the ultimate source, perhaps by way of Old Norse 'bóndi' (householder, literally 'dweller') or else through a contraction of Old English 'būend' (dweller); it gave Old English 'bōnda'/'būnda' (householder, freeman), which became Middle English 'bonde' (peasant, servant, bondman).