boln
/boʊln/
boln adjective: swollen; puffed out.
Adjective
boln (comparative more boln, superlative most boln)
- Swollen; puffed out.
- The Riuer, as running along the ſide of the City; in a skinne made like fleſh, naked, and blevv. His mantle of ſea-greene or vvater colour, thinne, and bolne out like a ſayle; […]1604 March 25 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), B[en] Jon[son], “The Pegme at Fen-church”, in B. Jon: His Part of King James His Royall and Magnificent Entertainement through His Honorable...
- Synonyms:
- bulging, distended, tumid, bulled, extuberant, farced, nodose, puffed, protuberant, swollen
Verb
boln (third-person singular simple present bolns, present participle bolning, simple past and past participle bolned)
- To swell; to puff.
- and when the great raines or water cometh and ſinketh thorow the gravell, and cometh to the earth, then the earth ſwelleth and bolneth, and waxeth ſoft, and with treading, and eſpecially with carriage, the gravel ſinketh and goeth downwards; […]1523, John Fitzherbert, The boke of husbandry, quoted in Richard Bradley, A Complete Body of Husbandry, published 1727, page 274
- Se howe this toode bolneth:1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue Francoyse, page 460
Synonyms of boln
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of boln
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more boln |
| superlative | most boln |
| alternative form | bollen |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | bolns |
| present participle | bolning |
| past participle | bolned |
| past | bolned |
Origin of boln
From Middle English bolnen, bollen, from Old Norse bólgna, from bolginn (“swollen”), past participle of a verb represented by Old English belgan (“to swell”). Compare Swedish bulna (“to swell, be swollen”), Danish bolne (“to swell, be swollen”). Related to belly, bellows.
Words that rhyme with boln
Questions about boln
- What does boln mean?
- Boln means swollen; puffed out.
- What part of speech is boln?
- Boln can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce boln?
- Boln is pronounced /boʊln/.
Words near boln in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: boln (page history and authors). 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:
Cite this entry: “boln.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boln. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.