Bulk
Pronunciation
- enPR: bÅlk, IPA: /bÊŒlk/
Origin
From Middle English bolke ("a heap, cargo, hold"), from Old Norse búlki ("the freight or the cargo of a ship"), from Proto-Germanic *bulkô ("beam, pile, heap"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhelǵ- ("beam, pile, prop"), related to Icelandic búlkast ("to be bulky"), Swedish dialectal bulk ("a bunch"), Danish bulk ("bump, knob"). Conflated with Middle English bouk ("belly, trunk"), from Old English bÅ«c ("belly, stomach, pitcher"), from Proto-Germanic *bÅ«kaz ("belly, body"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhÅw- ("to blow, swell"), related to Dutch buik ("belly"), German Bauch ("belly, stomach"), Swedish buk ("belly, abdomen"). More at bouk, bucket.
Full definition of bulk
Noun
bulk
(countable and uncountable; plural bulks)- Size, mass or volume.
- 1729. Isac Newton,The Quantity of Matter is the meaſure of the ſame, arising from its denſity and bulk conjunctly.
- Grey Riders|8The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chipped away at this boulder till it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere pin-point of its surface.
- The major part of something.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 12, There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs, …, and all these articles … made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.
- 2011, December 15, Felicity Cloake, How to cook the perfect nut roast, I'm convinced that the nut's very nutritiousness is to blame for the dish's poor reputation. They're so dense that a loaf made primarily from nuts would be more suitable for slicing into energy bars and selling to mountaineering supply shops - hence the main bulk of a nut roast is generally some form of carbohydrate, intended to lighten the load.
- The result of water retained by fibre.
- (uncountable, transport) Unpackaged goods when transported in large volumes, e.g. coal, ore or grain.
- (countable) a cargo or any items moved or communicated in the manner of cargo.
- (bodybuilding) Excess body mass, especially muscle.
- (brane cosmology) A hypothetical higher-dimensional space within which our own four-dimensional universe may exist.
- (obsolete) The body.
- ShakespeareMy liver leaped within my bulk.