Other forms: bullets
A bullet is the small piece of metal a gun fires. Fire a bullet, a bullet wound, dodge the bullet.
Strictly it is only the projectile: the whole thing you load is a cartridge, and the case stays behind. Dodge a bullet means to escape narrowly, and bite the bullet means to face something painful, from the days before anaesthetic.
1nounbulletThe small piece of metal a gun fires.
“The detective dug the bullet out of the wooden door frame.”
bullet is a projectile.
Old French boulette is a little ball, from boule, a ball, from Latin bulla.
Old French
bullete
Middle English
bullet — an official tag or badge of registration or identification
English, today
bullet
Built from
From Middle English bullet (“an official tag or badge of registration or identification”), from Old French bullete, diminutive of boule (“ball”). Later influenced by Middle French boulette and French boulet.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA