Word.ws English Dictionary

burbolt

burbolt is the obsolete form of birdbolt.

Meaning of birdbolt

Noun

birdbolt (plural birdbolts)

  1. A short blunt arrow for killing birds without piercing them.
  2. (figuratively) Anything that smites without penetrating.
    • To be generous, / guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those / things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets:c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 5, lines 86–88

Forms of burbolt

pluralburbolts

Questions about burbolt

What is burbolt the obsolete form of?
Burbolt is the obsolete form of birdbolt.

Words near burbolt in the dictionary

  1. burblier
  2. burbliest
  3. burbling
  4. burblings
  5. burbly
  6. burbolt
  7. burbolts
  8. burbot
  9. burbots
  10. Burbridge
  11. burbs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burbolt (page history and authors); birdbolt (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: “burbolt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burbolt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.