bounding

Pluralboundings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bound.

   The deer kept bounding through the tall grass toward the trees.

   We laughed as the puppy came bounding down the hallway.

   Note

   Two different verbs share the spelling bound, and this -ing form can belong to either. The leaping verb takes no object: a deer bounding through grass. The other is transitive and means to form the edge of something: hills bounding a valley. An older, now dated use meant to bounce or rebound. The bound that is the past of bind never produces this form, because that verb's -ing form is binding.

   Low hills bounding the valley on the east kept off the worst of the wind.

   A narrow lane bounding the estate on its northern side was the only way in.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of leaping or springing forward, as done by someone or something moving in great strides.

   The bounding of the hounds through the underbrush startled a flock of birds.

   The dancer's bounding across the stage drew gasps from the audience.

   Similarspringing, jumping, bouncing

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A boundary marking the limit or outer edge of an area.

   The river formed a natural bounding between the two counties.

   The neighbors disputed the exact bounding of the shared farmland.

   Similarboundary, border, limit

   Note

   A noun for the edge itself, made from the verb that means to form a boundary. In The Being, Love, and Other Attributes of God (before 1709), William Beveridge writes "without buttings or boundings on any side," pairing it in the plural with buttings, the points where land abuts land. It works as a count noun for a particular edge and as a mass noun for enclosure in general.

4. 4
   adjective

   Enclosing all points of a given set within its limits, so that nothing lies outside.

   A bounding sphere wraps around the model so that no vertex lies outside it.

   The algorithm fits a bounding rectangle around the cluster of data points.

   Similarenclosing

   Note

   Geometry and computing use it before the name of a shape: bounding box, bounding sphere, bounding rectangle. The shape is the one doing the enclosing. The set inside it is the one called bounded, and keeping that difference clear avoids a common confusion. It is not comparable, because a shape either contains every point or it does not, so nothing is "more bounding" than another.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The application of fire protection products only within limits that scientific testing has established.

   Fire engineers rely on bounding to ensure each coating stays within its tested limits.

   The report explained how bounding governs the safe use of these protective products.

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