Word.ws English Dictionary

bull

/bʊl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern Ireland/bʉl/

bull noun: specifically, one that is uncastrated. Also the clipping of bullseye.

Noun (1)

bull (countable and uncountable, plural bulls)

  1. Specifically, one that is uncastrated.
    Synonyms:
    gentleman cow
  2. (broadly) Any bovine of an aggressive or long-horned breed regardless of age and sex.
    Synonyms:
    gentleman cow
  3. A male of domesticated cattle or oxen of any age.
  4. Any adult male bovine.
  5. An adult male of certain large mammals, such as whales, elephants, camels and seals.
    • The quick eyes of a female caught sight of him first. With a barking guttural she called the attention of the others. Several huge bulls stood erect to get a better view of the intruder. With bared fangs and bristling necks they advanced slowly toward him, with deep-throated, ominous growls.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 196
    • The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. I rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. There were seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing thousands on the beach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard.
      "I know men club...1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC
  6. (slang, uncountable) Beef.
    • Meanwhile the Tommies had discovered several large tins of ham in the captured lorry. 'That,' said the big Nazi, 'is for our tea.' 'No,' said a Tommy sergeant-major. 'That's for our tea. For you, chummy, we've kept a nice bit of bull.'1949, Stephen Peter Llewellyn, Journey Towards Christmas, page 142
  7. A large, strong man.
  8. An investor who buys (commodities or securities) in anticipation of a rise in prices.
    • This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock. The fact is the reverse; it is a bear accompt, but the bears, unable to deliver their stock, have conjointly banged the market, and pocketed the tickets, to defeat the rise and loss that would have...1821, Bank of England, The Bank - The Stock Exchange - The Bankers ..., page 64
    • Bulls are hoping the prosecutions draw a line under the sector's troubled past and will allow it to tap billions of dollars of cash from Wall Street.2023 December 9, Scott Chipolina, “Unlikely resurgence for bitcoin as bulls bet on Wall Street adoption”, in FT Weekend (Companies & Markets section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC...
  9. (US, slang) A policeman; a detective; a railroad security guard.
    • You never waited until the train stopped to get off. The railroad bulls were waiting at the stops searching for freeloaders.2021, Rickie Lee Jones, Last Chance Texaco, Grive Press, published 2022, page 93
    • The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01
  10. (slang) An elderly lesbian.
  11. A man who has sex with someone else's partner.
    • The Vixen, often known as ‘Hotwife’, has sex with the encouragement of her husband or boyfriend with the Bull (that’s the guy who is servicing her). Another scenario is that the Vixen has sex with a Bull outside of the couple’s shared abode. Then she comes home and recounts all the details in a...2018 June 1, Holly O'Mahony, “‘Stag’ men love watching other guys have sex with their wives… but it’s not cuckolding”, in The Sun, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2018
  12. (Philadelphia, slang) A man or boy.
Show 3 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (UK, historical, obsolete, slang) A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings.
    • Half-a-crown is known as an alderman, half a bull, half a tusheroon, and a madza caroon; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a bull, or a caroon, or a cartwheel, or a coachwheel, or a thick-un, or a tusheroon.1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words
    Synonyms:
    bullseye
  2. (UK) The central portion of a target, inside the inner and magpie.
  3. (obsolete) A drink made by pouring water into a cask that previously held liquor.

Adjective

bull (not comparable)

  1. Large and strong, like a bull.
    Synonyms:
    beefy, hunky, robust
    Antonyms:
    feeble, puny, weak
  2. (attributive) Of large mammals, adult male.
    • a bull elephant
    • With the low, guttural snarl of the bull ape he sprang for the Frenchman.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 45
    Synonyms:
    male
    Antonyms:
    female
  3. Characterized by rising prices or belief that prices will rise.
    • a bull market
    Antonyms:
    bear
  4. Stupid.
    Synonyms:
    stupid

Verb (1)

bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. (intransitive, often) To force oneself (in a particular direction); to move aggressively.
    • He bulled his way in.
  2. (intransitive) To be in heat; to be ready for mating with a bull.
  3. (transitive) To mate with (a cow or heifer).
  4. (transitive) To endeavour to raise the market price of.
    • to bull railroad bonds
  5. (transitive) To endeavour to raise prices in.
    • to bull the market

Noun (2)

bull (plural bulls)

  1. A papal bull, an official document or edict from the Pope.
  2. A seal affixed to a document, especially a document from the Pope.

Verb (2)

bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. (dated) To publish in a papal bull.

Noun (3)

bull (uncountable)

  1. A lie.
  2. (euphemistic, informal) Nonsense.

Verb (3)

bull (third-person singular simple present bulls, present participle bulling, simple past and past participle bulled)

  1. To mock; to cheat.
  2. (intransitive) To lie, to tell untruths.
  3. (UK, transitive) To polish (boots) to a high shine.
    • We were to repeat our normal practise of me bulling his boots and him ironing my kit.2014, Sean Connolly, British Army on the Rampage (B.A.O.R.), page 118

Noun (4)

bull (plural bulls)

  1. (obsolete) A bubble.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Bull

the Bull

  1. The constellation and zodiacal sign Taurus.
    • The Bull reigneth in the neck, & in the throat.1668, ‘Godfridus’, The Knowledge of Things Unknown, London: G.P. for G. Sawbridge, page 19
    • Those stars said to belong to the Ram might as well be supposed to belong to the Bull or the Lion.1862, [Frances Rolleston], Mazzaroth, or, The Constellations, London: Rivingtons, page 15

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Bull

Bull

  1. A surname transferred from the nickname derived from the name of the animal.

Also used as

bull is also the clipping of bullseye.

bull is also the clipping of bullshit.

bull meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

bull in Hindi

uncastrated adult male bovine
सांड sāṇḍ, बैल bail, ऋषभ ŕṣabh

bull in Tamil

adult male animal
எருது erutu, ஏறு ēṟu
uncastrated adult male bovine
எருது erutu, காளை kāḷai, ஏறு ēṟu
large, strong man
காளை kāḷai

bull in Marathi

uncastrated adult male bovine
बैल bail

bull in Urdu

uncastrated adult male bovine
سانڈ sāṇḍ, بیل bail
More languagesFewer languages
bull in Bengali
ষণ্ড śonḍo
bull in Telugu
ఎద్దు eddu
bull in Malayalam
ഇടവം iṭavaṁ
bull in Kannada
ಗೂಳಿ gūḷi, ಬಸವ basava
bull in Punjabi
ਦਾਂਦ dānd
bull in Sanskrit
ऋषभ ṛṣabha, उक्षन् ukṣan
bull in Assamese
ষাঁড় xãr
bull in Tagalog
toro
bull in Arabic
ثَوْر ṯawr, مَرْسُوم marsūm
bull in Malay
lembu jantan
bull in Indonesian
sapi, banteng
bull in Persian
گاو نر gâv-e nar
bull in Thai
พฤษภ prʉ́-sòp
bull in Vietnamese
bò đực
bull in Myanmar
နွားထီး nwa:hti:
Kashmiri
دانٛد dānd

Examples of bull in a sentence

  • This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock.1821, Bank of England, The Bank - The Stock Exchange - The Bankers ..., page 64:
  • The Vixen, often known as ‘Hotwife’, has sex with the encouragement of her husband or boyfriend with the Bull (that’s the guy who is servicing her).2018 June 1, Holly O'Mahony, “‘Stag’ men love watching other guys have sex with their wives… but it’s not cuckolding”, in The Sun, archived...
  • A bull elk can easily cover miles of rugged country in no time, especially if he is wounded or on the run.2021 [2001], John Eldredge, chapter 1, in Wild at Heart, Expanded edition, Nelson Books, →ISBN, page 2:

All 40 example sentences with bull

Synonyms of bull

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of bull

Forms of bull

Noun
pluralbulls
Verb
third-person singular presentbulls
present participlebulling
past participlebulled
pastbulled

Plural of bull: bulls

Origin of bull

From Middle English bole, bul, bule, from a conflation of Old English bula (“bull, steer”) and Old Norse boli, both from Proto-Germanic *bulô (“bull”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥no-, from *bʰel- (“to blow, swell up”). Cognate with West Frisian bolle, Dutch bul, German Low German Bull, German Bulle, Swedish bulla; also Old Irish ball (“limb”), Latin follis (“bellows, leather bag”), Albanian bolle (“testicles”), Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós, “penis”). Of sense 11, (a man or boy), derived from the Philadelphia English pronunciation of boy, which is practically a homophone of bull.

From Middle English bulle, from Old French bulle, from Latin bulla, from Gaulish. Doublet of bull (“bubble”) and bulla.

From Middle English bull, bul, boule (“falsehood, deceit”), probably from Old French boul, boule, bole (“fraud, deceit, cunning”), from Old French bouler, boler (“to deceive, delude, lure, take in”), from Middle Low German bôlen (“to court, to woo”). Cognate with German buhlen (“to woo”). Doublet of bully. Often reanalyzed by surface analysis to be an expurgated clipping of bullshit.

Words formed from bull

Phrases with bull

121 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bull

Questions about bull

What does bull mean?
Bull means specifically, one that is uncastrated.
What is bull in Hindi?
Bull in Hindi is सांड (sāṇḍ), बैल (bail), ऋषभ (ŕṣabh). See Bull meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bull in a sentence?
This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock.
What part of speech is bull?
Bull can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bull?
Bull is pronounced /bʊl/.
What is the plural of bull?
The plural of bull is bulls.

Words near bull in the dictionary

  1. bulksome
  2. bulkwise
  3. bulky
  4. bulky refuse
  5. bulky waste
  6. bull
  7. bull and cow
  8. bull ant
  9. bull ants
  10. bull bar
  11. bull bars

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bull (page history and authors); Bull (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:

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

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