Word.ws English Dictionary

bullion

/ˈbʊl.jən/

bullion noun: a bulk quantity of precious metal, usually gold or silver, assessed by weight and typically cast as ingots.

bullion: a bulk quantity of precious metal, usually gold or silver, assessed by weight and typically cast as...
Image: Swiss Banker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bullion (countable and uncountable, plural bullions)

  1. A bulk quantity of precious metal, usually gold or silver, assessed by weight and typically cast as ingots.
    • If the mint kept back one per cent, to pay the expense of coinage, it would be against the interest of the holders of bullion to have it coined, until the coin was more valuable than the bullion by at least that fraction.1848, John Stuart Mill, chapter VI, in Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, book III...
  2. (obsolete) Base or uncurrent coin.
    • And those which eld's strict doom did disallow, / And damn for bullion, go for current now.1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, translated by Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson...
  3. (obsolete) Showy metallic ornament, as of gold, silver, or copper, on bridles, saddles, etc.
    • To beholde how it was garnysshyd and bounde, […]
      The claspis and bullyons were worth a thousande pounde; […]1523, John Skelton, A ryght delectable tratyse upon a goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 345...
  4. (obsolete) A heavy twisted fringe, made of fine gold or silver wire and used for epaulets; also, any heavy twisted fringe whose cords are prominent.
    • The hair was plaited with bullion and red riband, and then wound round the head, something after the fashion of a turban, save that it entirely displayed the forehead.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 257
  5. The mark left on a glass piece from its attachment to a punty.
    Synonyms:
    bullseye

Proper noun capitalized: Bullion

Bullion (plural Bullions)

  1. A surname.

bullion meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu

bullion in Tamil

தங்கப் பாளம், வௌளிக் கட்டி, வௌளிப் பாளம், உலோகக்கட்டு, நாணயமாக்கப்படாத பொன், வௌளிப்பாளம்

bullion in Marathi

सराफा

bullion in Bengali

সোনার গাটি, বার

bullion in Telugu

బులియన్
More languagesFewer languages
bullion in Malayalam
ബുള്ളിയൻ
bullion in Kannada
ಚಿನ್ನದ ಗಟ್ಟಿ, ಬೆಳ್ಳಿಗಟ್ಟಿ
bullion in Malay
jongkong
bullion in Indonesian
batangan, ingot
bullion in Persian
شمش šemš

Synonyms of bullion

Forms of bullion

Noun
pluralbullions
Proper noun
pluralBullions
alternative formBullins

Plural of bullion: bullions

Origin of bullion

From Middle English bulloin, bullioun, from Anglo-Norman bullion, of obscure origin, perhaps from French bouillon, extending the sense to that of ‘melting’. Middle Dutch boelioen (“base metal”) seems to have come from the unrelated French billon.

Words formed from bullion

Phrases with bullion

Questions about bullion

What does bullion mean?
Bullion means a bulk quantity of precious metal, usually gold or silver, assessed by weight and typically cast as ingots.
What is bullion in Tamil?
Bullion in Tamil is தங்கப் பாளம், வௌளிக் கட்டி, வௌளிப் பாளம். See Bullion meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is bullion?
Bullion can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bullion?
Bullion is pronounced /ˈbʊl.jən/.
What is the plural of bullion?
The plural of bullion is bullions.

Words near bullion in the dictionary

  1. bullinids
  2. Bullins
  3. Bullinses
  4. Bullio
  5. Bullioh
  6. bullion
  7. bullionaire
  8. bullionaires
  9. bullioned
  10. bullionise
  11. bullionised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bullion (page history and authors); Bullion (page history and authors); bullion (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bullion (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bullion (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bullion (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bullion (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bullion (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bullion.wav.

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