bulbous

UK/ˈbʌlbəs/US/ˈbʌlbəs/

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,612 of 15,258leans written

Bulbous means fat and round in an ugly way. A bulbous nose, a bulbous shape, bulbous and swollen.

It is nearly always unkind, and a bulbous nose is the standing example. In botany the same word is neutral and simply means growing from a bulb, which is why a catalogue can describe bulbous plants without insulting anybody.

Definitions of bulbous

1adjectivebulbousFat and round in an ugly way.C1
“The creature in the film had a bulbous head and tiny eyes.”

bulbous is a shape.

Where it comes from

Latin bulbosus comes from bulbus, an onion or bulb.

Latin
bulbosus
English, today
bulbous

From bulb + ous or alteration of Latin bulbosus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

bulbous in the wild

In gardening, plants with other kinds of storage organ are also called ornamental bulbous plants or just bulbs.
Bulb
Large ships with bulbous bows generally have twelve to fifteen percent better fuel efficiency than similar vessels without them.
Bulbous bow
A bulbous bow also increases the buoyancy of the forward part and hence reduces the pitching of the ship to a small degree.
Bulbous bow
Phalaris aquatica, known by the common names bulbous canary-grass and Harding grass, is a species of grass in the genus Phalaris of the family Poaceae.
Phalaris aquatica
As result of this earthquake, the bulbous pagoda broke into pieces and fell into the river.
Bupaya Pagoda

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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

bulb

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