Other forms: bailed, bails, bailing
Bail is money left with a court so that a person accused of a crime can wait for the trial at home instead of in a cell. The judge sets it at five thousand pounds, a relative pays, and the accused walks out that afternoon on a promise to come back.
You are granted bail, released on bail, or refused bail; disappear instead of turning up and you have jumped bail, and the money is gone. A completely separate bail has nothing to do with courts: to bail is to scoop water out of a boat with a bucket or a tin. From that comes bail out, meaning rescue, as when a government bails out a bank or a friend bails you out after your car dies. Informally, to bail on something is to back out of it late: he bailed on dinner. And in cricket, the bails are the two little wooden bars balanced on top of the stumps.
1nounbailMoney paid to a court so that an accused person can go free until the trial; also the release itself.~85%
“She was released on bail after two nights in the cells.”
2verbscoopTo scoop water out of a boat.~2%
“Two of us rowed while the third kept bailing.”
3verbrescueTo rescue a person or a company in trouble, with money; usually 'bail out'.~6%
“The government bailed out two banks in a single week.”
4verbleaveTo leave, or to abandon a plan, at short notice. Informal.~5%
“He bailed on the trip two days before we left.”
5nouncricketIn cricket, one of the two small wooden bars resting on top of the stumps.~2%
“The ball clipped the stump and the bail fell.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 18 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
bail is a legal arrangement.
Bail came through Middle English baille from Old French, where bailler meant 'to deliver or hand over' and bail meant a lease. Behind those sits Latin baiulo, 'to carry or bear', from baiulus, a porter or steward. That Latin porter still walks around English as the bailiff, and the idea holds: bail is a handing over, the accused passed into somebody else's keeping.
Latin
bāiulō — carry or bear
Middle English
baille
English, today
bail
Built from
From Middle English baille, from the Old French - verb bailler (“to deliver or hand over”) and noun bail (“lease”), from Latin bāiulō (“carry or bear”), from baiulus (“porter; steward”) (English: bailiff).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA