Word.ws English Dictionary

bilge

/bɪld͡ʒ/

bilge noun: the rounded portion of a ship's hull, forming a transition between the bottom and the sides.

Noun

bilge (countable and uncountable, plural bilges)

  1. The rounded portion of a ship's hull, forming a transition between the bottom and the sides.
  2. The lowest inner part of a ship's hull, where water accumulates.
    • […] water deluged into the cockpit and Niagaraed into the bilge. Only constant use of the pump kept the floorboards from going adrift.1943, MotorBoating, volume 71, number 1, page 134
  3. (uncountable) The water accumulated in the bilge; bilge water.
  4. (slang, uncountable) Stupid talk or writing; nonsense.
    • talk bilge
    • complete bilge
  5. The bulging part of a barrel or cask.

Verb

bilge (third-person singular simple present bilges, present participle bilging, simple past and past participle bilged)

  1. (intransitive) To spring a leak in the bilge.
  2. (intransitive) To bulge or swell.
  3. (transitive) To break open the bilge(s) of.

bilge meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Arabic

bilge in Tamil

கப்பல் அடித்தளம், படகின் விலாப் பகுதி

bilge in Bengali

অর্থহীন কথা

bilge in Malayalam

nonsense, gibberish, rubbish
അസംബന്ധം, ശുദ്ധഅസംബന്ധം, അപാർത്ഥം, അർത്ഥമില്ലാത്തത്, ചവറ്, വിലകെട്ട സാഹിത്യരചന

bilge in Arabic

lowest inner part of a ship's hull
جَمَّة jamma, إِنْكِلِيَّة ʔinkiliyya

Examples of bilge in a sentence

  • "The whole thing is the most absolute bilge and a disgrace to our legislature."1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In which the Notorious Criminal Gets what the British Law Considers to be His Deserts”, in The...
  • More likely, however, they know bilge when they see it—but laud this particular bilge nonetheless because it furthers a common partisan interest.2026, Michael Anton, “Fury Road”, in The Claremont Review of Books, The Claremont Institute, →ISSN, →OCLC:

Forms of bilge

Noun
pluralbilges
Verb
third-person singular presentbilges
present participlebilging
past participlebilged
pastbilged

Plural of bilge: bilges

Origin of bilge

Likely derived from bulge. Compare Middle English bulgen (“to ground or scuttle a ship”).

Words formed from bilge

Phrases with bilge

Questions about bilge

What does bilge mean?
Bilge means the rounded portion of a ship's hull, forming a transition between the bottom and the sides.
What is bilge in Tamil?
Bilge in Tamil is கப்பல் அடித்தளம், படகின் விலாப் பகுதி. See Bilge meaning in Tamil.
How do you use bilge in a sentence?
"The whole thing is the most absolute bilge and a disgrace to our legislature."
What part of speech is bilge?
Bilge can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bilge?
Bilge is pronounced /bɪld͡ʒ/.
What is the plural of bilge?
The plural of bilge is bilges.

Words near bilge in the dictionary

  1. bilestones
  2. bilete
  3. Biletskyi
  4. bilevel
  5. bilevels
  6. bilge
  7. bilge keel
  8. bilge keels
  9. bilge pump
  10. bilge pumps
  11. bilge-free

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bilge (page history and authors); bilge (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bilge (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bilge (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bilge.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bilge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bilge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.