# bull

Pronunciation: say "BUUL" /ˈbʊl/

## Noun

1. A male of cattle or a related animal such as a bison or buffalo, especially an adult that has not been castrated.
   - Simple: A male cow or other male animal of the cattle family, usually a grown one that can father calves.
   - _The rancher paid more for a single prize bull than for twenty of his best cows._
   - _Each spring the neighbor lends out his bull to breed the dairy herd down the road._
3. An investor who buys commodities or securities in the expectation that their prices will rise.
   - Simple: Someone who buys stocks or goods because they think the prices will go up.
   - _She has been a bull on gold for years, buying more every time the price dips._
   - _Bulls on Wall Street argue that the rally still has room to run._
4. Nonsense, or untrue talk meant to fool someone; a milder word for a ruder one. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Silly or untrue talk, often meant to trick you. It is a softer form of a ruder word.
   - _Half of what gets posted on those health forums is pure bull._
   - _The idea that you need to be rich to travel is bull, and she proved it._
5. An official document or decree issued by the Pope.
   - Simple: An official letter or order from the Pope.
   - _The Pope issued a bull declaring a new feast day for the whole Church._
   - _Copies of the bull were read aloud in churches across Europe._
6. The adult male of certain large mammals, including whales, elephants, camels and seals.
   - Simple: A grown male of some big animals, such as whales, elephants, camels and seals.
   - _On the crowded seal beach, two bulls reared up and slammed their chests together._
   - _A lone bull left the elephant herd and crossed the river at dusk._
7. The center of a target or dartboard, the bullseye; also a shot or throw that hits it. *(UK)*
   - Simple: The very middle of a target or dartboard, or a shot that hits it.
   - _Every one of her five rounds at a hundred yards went into the bull._
   - _The sergeant studied the target: two shots in the magpie, one in the inner and none in the bull._
9. Loosely, any bovine of an aggressive or long-horned breed, whatever its age or sex.
   - Simple: Any animal from a fierce or long-horned type of cattle, male or female, at any age.
   - _Day-trippers to the ranch tend to call every longhorn a bull, though most of the herd are cows and calves._
   - _The family has bred fighting bulls for three generations, and their heifers charge just as hard as the males._
12. A large, powerfully built man of great physical strength.
   - Simple: A man who is very big and strong.
   - _The bouncer was a bull of a man, with a neck as thick as a fence post._
   - _The coach put his two biggest bulls on the front line to open holes for the runners._
14. A policeman or a detective, or a security guard employed by a railroad. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: A police officer, a detective, or a guard who works for a train company.
   - _A railroad bull caught him asleep in an empty boxcar and threw him off at the next stop._
   - _The bulls from the precinct came around twice asking who had fenced the jewelry._
17. Beef, the meat of cattle. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Beef, the meat that comes from cattle.
18. A seal attached to a document, especially one issued by the Pope.
   - Simple: A seal fixed to an official paper, most often one sent by the Pope.
   - _A round lead bull still hangs from the parchment on a cord of red silk._
   - _The archivist cradled the charter carefully so that the weight of its bull would not tear the parchment._

## Adjective

2. Marked by rising prices, or by the expectation that prices will rise.
   - Simple: Describes a market where prices are going up or people expect them to go up.
   - _Stock prices nearly doubled over the long bull market that followed the recession._
   - _Analysts warned that the bull run in copper could end as soon as demand slowed._
8. Adult and male, said of a large mammal and placed before its name.
   - Simple: Used before the name of a big animal to show it is a grown male.
   - _A bull elephant can be heard rumbling long before it comes into view._
   - _With a deep grunt, the bull moose lowered its antlers and charged._
11. Big and powerfully strong, the way a bull is.
   - Simple: Very big and strong, like a male cow.
   - _The new linebacker combines bull strength with surprisingly quick feet._
   - _The bouncer's bull neck bulged above his collar as he folded his arms and blocked the door._

## Verb

10. To force one's way forward, moving aggressively in a particular direction, often into or through something.
   - Simple: To push hard and roughly to get somewhere.
   - _The fullback lowered his shoulder and bulled his way into the end zone._
   - _Reporters tried to bull past the guards and into the courtroom._
13. Of a bull, to mate with a cow or heifer.
   - Simple: For a bull, to mate with a cow or a young female cow.
   - _Turned out with the herd in early summer, the young Angus had bulled nearly every heifer by August._
   - _A healthy yearling can bull about twenty heifers in a single breeding season._
15. To try to raise the market price of something, such as stocks or bonds, or the level of prices in a market.
   - Simple: To try to make the price of something, like shares, go up in the market.
   - _A group of speculators tried to bull the cotton market by buying every bale they could find._
   - _Traders spent the week bulling railroad stocks ahead of the merger vote._
16. To tell untruths, saying things one knows to be false.
   - Simple: To say things that are not true.
   - _He was bulling about his war record, and everyone at the table knew it._
   - _Some people bull just to make a story sound better._
19. Of a cow or heifer, to be in heat and ready to mate with a bull.
   - Simple: For a cow, to be ready to mate with a bull.
   - _Two of the heifers were bulling this morning, so we moved them in with the Hereford._
   - _Cows that don't bull again within a few months of calving should be checked by the vet._
20. To polish boots until they have a high shine. *(UK)*
   - Simple: To rub polish into boots until they shine very brightly.
   - _You'll bull those boots until I can see my face in them, Private!_
   - _Recruits sat up past midnight bulling their boots for the passing-out parade._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A man who has sex with another person's partner with the consent of both members of the couple.
- (verb) To mock someone, or to cheat them.
- (adjective) Stupid; lacking intelligence or good sense.
- (noun) A man or boy.
- (noun) An elderly lesbian.
- (noun) A British crown piece, a coin worth five shillings, or that sum of money.
- (noun) A weak drink got by filling an emptied spirits barrel with water and letting it soak up the leftover alcohol.
- (verb) To announce or proclaim something by means of a formal decree from the Pope.
- (noun) A small ball of air or gas inside a liquid, or a thin film filled with air.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3, 6–15, 17, 19** — Middle English bole, bul, bule blended Old English bula ("bull, steer") with Old Norse boli. Both come from Proto-Germanic *bulô ("bull"), which goes back to *bʰl̥no-, a Proto-Indo-European form built on the root *bʰel-, meaning "to blow, swell up." Close relatives are German Bulle, German Low German Bull, Dutch bul, and West Frisian bolle. More distant ones are Old Irish ball ("limb") and Albanian bolle ("testicles"), and perhaps Latin follis ("bellows, leather bag") and Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós, "penis").
**Meanings 5, 18** — From Middle English bulle, from Old French bulle, from Latin bulla ('round swelling, seal'), possibly from Gaulish. The decree is named after the round lead seal fixed to it. It is a doublet of bull ('bubble') and bulla.
**Meanings 4, 16, 20** — The likely source is boul, boule, bole in Old French, meaning "fraud, deceit, cunning," which came from the verb bouler, boler ("to deceive, delude, lure" or "take in"). That verb in turn came from bôlen, a Middle Low German verb meaning "to woo, court." In Middle English the word was bull, bul, boule ("falsehood, deceit"). German buhlen ("to woo") and English bully are related. Many people now take it to be a cleaned-up shortening of bullshit.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/bull (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).