bullet
pronunciation
How to pronounce bullet in British English:
UK [ˈbʊlɪt]
How to pronounce bullet in American English:
US [ˈbʊlɪt]
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- Noun:
- a projectile that is fired from a gun
- a high-speed passenger train
- (baseball) a pitch thrown with maximum velocity
Word Origin
- bullet
- bullet: [16] Etymologically, a bullet is a ‘little ball’. It comes from French boulette, a diminutive form of boule ‘ball’, from which English also gets bowl, as in the game of bowls. It originally meant ‘cannon-ball’ as well as ‘rifle or pistol projectile’, but this sense had effectively died out by the mid-18th century.=> bowl
- bullet (n.)
- 1550s, from Middle French boulette "cannonball, small ball," diminutive of boule "a ball" (13c.), from Latin bulla "round thing, knob" (see bull (n.2)). Earliest version of bite the bullet recorded 1891, probably with a sense of giving someone a soft lead bullet to clench in the teeth during a painful operation.
Example
- 1. The european central bank has fired its magic bullet .
- 2. Sure enough , ralph returned home with another bullet wound .
- 3. Lke flame , like bullet , these verses gave us some important enlightenment and stimulation .
- 4. By contrast , japan 's bullet train has had just one fatality in 47 years , a passenger caught in a door .
- 5. That 's a bullet ant .