bold

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Courageous, daring.
  2. Visually striking; conspicuous.
  3. Having thicker strokes than the ordinary form of the typeface.
  4. Presumptuous, forward or impudent.
  5. Naughty; insolent; badly-behaved.
  6. Full-bodied.
  7. Pornographic; depicting nudity.
  8. Steep or abrupt.
verb
  1. To make (a font or some text) bold.
  2. To make bold or daring.
  3. To become bold or brave.
noun
  1. A dwelling; habitation; building.
name
  1. A surname.
  2. A civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England.
adj
  1. Acronym of blood-oxygen-level dependent.

Pronunciation

/ˈbəʊld/ [ˈbɒʊɫd] /ˈbɒld/ /boʊld/ en-us-bold.ogg /baʉld/ [bɒʊ(ɫ)d] /bold/ [boɫd] /bould/ [bouɫd]

Word forms

bold bolder more bold boldest most bold bolds bolding bolded bolde boolde

Etymology

From Middle English bold, bolde, bald, beald, from Old English bald, beald (“bold, brave, confident, strong, of good courage, presumptuous, impudent”), from Proto-West Germanic *balþ, from Proto-Germanic *balþaz (“strong, bold”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-, *bʰlē- (“to bloat, swell, bubble”). Cognate with Dutch boud (“bold, courageous, fearless”), Middle High German balt (“bold”) (whence German bald (“soon”)), Swedish båld (“bold, dauntless”). Perhaps related to Albanian ballë (“forehead”) and Old Prussian balo (“forehead”). Compare typologically Italian affrontare (“to face, to deal with”), sfrontato (“bold, daring, insolent”), both from Latin frons (“forehead”).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.