bosom

UK/ˈbʊz(ə)m/

bosom noun: the breast or chest of a human (or sometimes of another animal).

Noun

bosom (plural bosoms)

(dated) The breast or chest of a human (or sometimes of another animal).
- Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her...1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- Mary felt annoyed at the girl; just because bras had become passé, did a girl with so pronounced a bosom have to cater to fashion? In this case practicality dictated a bra, and Mary stood at the desk feeling herself flushing with disapproval.1964, Philip K. Dick, “FOUR”, in Clans of the Alphane Moon, United States: Ace Books, →OCLC; republished London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996, →ISBN, page 27
The seat of one's inner thoughts, feelings, etc.; one's secret feelings; desire.
- my poor dear duke[…], in consequence of the excitement created in his august bosom by her frantic violence and grief, had a fit in which I very nigh lost him.1844 January–December, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. [The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […]...
- His uncle, a Cardinal, engages a Spanish youth of Moorish descent called Diego, an expert singer and player on the virginal,[…]to cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff, and cure him by the spell of his music.1932, Maurice Baring, chapter 16, in Friday's Business
The protected interior or inner part of something; the area enclosed as by an embrace.
- … Mr Toodle … was refreshing himself with tea in the bosom of his family.1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
- there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I, page 1
The part of a dress etc. covering the chest; a neckline.
- And he put his hand into his boſome: and when hee tooke it out, behold, his hand was leprous as ſnowe.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 4:6
- She was always in a fearful hurry, and the lower the bosom was cut the more it was to be gathered she was wanted elsewhere.1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew
A breast, one of a woman's breasts
- I dont [sic] know that her bosoms were fuller than usual.1833, E.K. Avery, B.F. Hallet, Trial of Rev. Mr. Avery, Boston, page 140
- The prevailing look at Aintree was of a well-upholstered woman wearing an outfit about three sizes too small for her; trouser suits so tight you could not only tell if the lady had a coin in her pocket but see if it was heads or tails, and skimpy tops proclaiming proudly that bosoms are back—and...2003 April 7, Martin Kelner, The Guardian
Synonyms:

breasts
Any thing or place resembling the breast; a supporting surface; an inner recess; the interior.
- I observed, indeed, that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator, number 26
- The appointed place was on the edge of a deep, rocky ravine, down in whose dark bosom brawled and foamed a little mountain torrent.1864, George MacDonald, The Old Nurse's Story
A depression round the eye of a millstone.
- The bosom of the mill-stone is a central depression, and the staff is adjustable to test the symmetry of the concavity.1884, Edward Henry Knight, Knight's New Mechanical Dictionary, page 123

Adjective

bosom (not comparable)

In a very close relationship.
- bosom buddies
- Lieut. Creecy of the navy, who has been detailed to the aerial experiments at the fort, and who was a bosom companion of young Selfridge, was brokenhearted.1908 September 18, “Fatal fall of Wright airship”, in New York Times, Describing the death of Thomas Etholen Selfridge, first airplane fatality in history

Verb

bosom (third-person singular simple present bosoms, present participle bosoming, simple past and past participle bosomed)

To enclose or carry in the bosom; to keep with care; to take to heart; to cherish.
- Bosom up my counsel,
  You’ll find it wholesome.c. 1612, William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act I, Scene 1
To conceal; to hide from view; to embosom.
- To happy Convents bosom’d deep in Vines,
  Where slumber Abbots, purple as their Wines;1741, Alexander Pope, The New Dunciad: As it was Found in the Year 1741, Dublin: George Faulkner, published 1742, Book IV, p 29, lines 291-292
- Those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in the queen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book.1818, Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth
(intransitive) To belly; to billow, swell or bulge.
- Just above the recess the cliff bosomed out with a full swell for some two or three feet, effectually preventing any one’s looking down into the nest from above […]1869, Allan Hume, “My first Nests of Bonelli’s Eagle”, in The Ibis, Series 2, Volume 5, p. 145
- What Stewart called a “langtailie coat” spread out behind him like streamers in a breeze, a “biled” collar had, in the same gentleman’s terse language, “burst its moorings” and projected in two miniature wings at the back of his ears, and a shirt that had once been white, bosomed out expansively...1905, Alex Macdonald, In Search of El Dorado, London: T. Fisher Unwin, Part II, “The Five-Mile Rush,” p. 92
(transitive) To belly; to cause to billow, swell or bulge.
- I looked again, and though I was sensible it must be a delusion brought on by the stroke of his powerful rod, yet I did see the appearance of a glorious fleet of ships coming bounding along the surface of the firmament of air, while every mainsail was bosomed out like the side of a Highland...1822, James Hogg, The Three Perils of Man, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Volume 3, Chapter 12, pp. 440-441
- Thus one by one they mount, and spreading wide,
  The transverse wings extend on either side,
  And, lightly bosomed by the gentle gale,
  She seems a moving pyramid of ail.1855, The Scald [pseudonym of George Smellie], “Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay” in The Sea: Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay, and Other Poems, London: Hope & Co., p. 45

bosom meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

bosom in Hindi

chest, breast: स्तन stan
woman's breast(s): स्तन stan

bosom in Urdu

bosom: پستان pistān, گود god
the bosom: بغل baġal

bosom in Telugu

chest, breast: రొమ్ము rommu

More languagesFewer languages

bosom in Malayalam: മാറിടം, സ്തനങ്ങൾ, നെഞ്ച്, ഹൃദയം
bosom in Kannada: ಎದೆ, ತೆಗೆಲೆ
bosom in Gujarati: અંચલ añcal
bosom in Odia: ଛାତି chāti
bosom in Sanskrit: अप्सस् ápsas, पालि pāli
bosom in Nepali: बोसम, बोसोम, बोसोमिङ
bosom in Arabic: ثَدْي ṯady

Examples of bosom in a sentence

The baby was crammed against one of her bosoms.2009, Emma Smith, The Great Western Beach, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 241:
Beyond were the pines, and a rugged road, flint-edged, full of dips and rises, turns and twists, hovering on edges, or bosoming itself in deep rock-strewn cuts.1901, Stewart Edward White, The Claim Jumpers:

All 40 example sentences with bosom

Synonyms of bosom

breasts

Forms of bosom

Noun
plural	bosoms
alternative form (obsolete)	bosome
Verb
third-person singular present	bosoms
present participle	bosoming
past participle	bosomed
past	bosomed

Plural of bosom: bosoms

Origin of bosom

From Middle English bosom, bosum, from Old English bōsm, from Proto-West Germanic *bōsm, from Proto-Germanic *bōsmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewH- (“to swell, bend, curve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bossem, Bousem (“bosom”), West Frisian boezem (“bosom”), Dutch boezem (“bosom”), German Busen (“bosom”). Related also to Albanian buzë (“lip”), Greek βυζί (vyzí, “breast”), Romanian buză (“lip”), Irish bus (“lip”), and Latin bucca (“cheek”).

Words formed from bosom

Phrases with bosom

Questions about bosom

What does bosom mean?: Bosom means the breast or chest of a human (or sometimes of another animal).
What is bosom in Hindi?: Bosom in Hindi is स्तन (stan). See Bosom meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bosom in a sentence?: The baby was crammed against one of her bosoms.
What part of speech is bosom?: Bosom can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce bosom?: Bosom is pronounced /ˈbʊz(ə)m/ (UK).
What is the plural of bosom?: The plural of bosom is bosoms.

Words near bosom in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: bosom (page history and authors); بغل (Urdu) (page history and authors); bosom (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bosom (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); અંચલ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଛାତି (Odia) (page history and authors); अप्सस् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); bosom (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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: 2026-09-02

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

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