bound

UK/ˈbaʊ̯nd/US/ˈbaʊ̯nd/

verbB25 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,592 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bounded, bounds, bounding

To bound is to run in big springy leaps, the way a dog crosses a field to get to you. A retriever bounding through long grass; a boy bounding up the stairs two at a time.

The rest of bound is a heap of separate words that happen to look alike. Bound to means certain to — 'in this traffic we are bound to be late'. Bound for means heading towards: a train bound for Glasgow, homeward bound. Bound is also the past of bind — hands bound with tape, a book bound in leather, a witness bound to secrecy — and 'bound up with' means tangled together with. As a plural noun, bounds are limits: out of bounds, within the bounds of reason, and joy that knows no bounds.

Definitions of bound

1verbboundTo run or move forward in long springy leaps.B2~2%
“The dog bounded across the lawn to meet them.”
2adjectivecertainCertain to do something or to happen (with 'to').B2~2%
“In this traffic we are bound to be late.”
3adjectivetravellingTravelling towards a particular place (with 'for').B2~2%
“She got on a coach bound for Edinburgh.”
4adjectivetiedTied or fastened, or held to a promise or duty.B2~92%
“His hands were bound behind his back.”
5nounlimitsThe limits of what is allowed or possible (in the plural, bounds).B2~2%
“The joke was well outside the bounds of good taste.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

out of bounds — in a place, or on a subject, that is not allowed
by leaps and bounds — improving faster than anybody expected
bound up with — closely and inseparably connected with

Where it comes from

The origin traced here is the one that runs through bind: Middle English bounden, Old English ġebunden, the old past form of binding. That is the bound in hands bound behind a back and in a book bound in leather. The leaping bound and the bounds that fence a field came into English by other roads, so one spelling is doing the work of several different words.

Old English
bund-
Middle English
bound
English, today
bound

From Middle English bound, bund and bounden, bunden, ibunden, ȝebunden, from Old English bund- and bunden, ġebunden respectively. See bind.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving

First appears in chapter 1 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

bound in the wild

However, in some languages, including English and Latin, even many roots cannot stand alone; i.e., they are bound morphemes.
Morpheme
In late imperial China, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty.
Foot binding
By 2007, only a handful of elderly Chinese women whose feet had been bound were still alive.
Foot binding
Alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl functional group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom, usually connected to other carbon or hydrogen atoms.
Index of alcohol-related articles
Although iPrint is bound to Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), it does not require a Novell client but only an iPrint client.
IPrint

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the bund- family

bound

bound — used about once every 179 pages · #1,592 · point at the bar for the others

boundaries

Definitions of bound

1verbboundTo run or move forward in long springy leaps.B2~2%

“The dog bounded across the lawn to meet them.”

2adjectivecertainCertain to do something or to happen (with 'to').B2~2%

“In this traffic we are bound to be late.”

3adjectivetravellingTravelling towards a particular place (with 'for').B2~2%

“She got on a coach bound for Edinburgh.”

4adjectivetiedTied or fastened, or held to a promise or duty.B2~92%

“His hands were bound behind his back.”

5nounlimitsThe limits of what is allowed or possible (in the plural, bounds).B2~2%

“The joke was well outside the bounds of good taste.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.