bulb
pronunciation
How to pronounce bulb in British English:
UK [bʌlb]
How to pronounce bulb in American English:
US [bʌlb]
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- Noun:
- a modified bud consisting of a thickened globular underground stem serving as a reproductive structure
- electric lamp consisting of a glass bulb containing a wire filament (usually tungsten) that emits light when heated
- a rounded part of a cylindrical instrument (usually at one end)
- lower or hindmost part of the brain; continuous with spinal cord; (`bulb' is an old term for medulla oblongata)
- a rounded dilation or expansion in a canal or vessel or organ
Word Origin
- bulb
- bulb: [16] Bulb can be traced back to Greek bólbos, which was a name for various plants with a rounded swelling underground stem. In its passage via Latin bulbus to English it was often applied specifically to the ‘onion’, and that was its original meaning in English. Its application to the light bulb, dating from the 1850s, is an extension of an earlier 19th-century sense ‘bulbshaped swelling in a glass tube’, used from the 1830s for thermometer bulbs.
- bulb (n.)
- 1560s, "an onion," from Middle French bulbe (15c.), from Latin bulbus "bulb, bulbous root, onion," from Greek bolbos "plant with round swelling on underground stem." Expanded by 1800 to "swelling in a glass tube" (thermometer bulb, light bulb, etc.).
Example
- 1. Not that the bulb 's shiny record is perfect .
- 2. The first screw-in compact fluorescent bulb appeared in 1980 .
- 3. Members of the youth group koch hope installed the water bulb .
- 4. They fixate on every piece , from the cord to the bulb .
- 5. Veronica wanjiru and her two children also have a water bulb in their home .