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bullion

UK/ˈbʊl.jən/US/ˈbʊl.jən/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,894 of 15,258neutral

Bullion is gold or silver in bars rather than coin. Gold bullion, a bullion vault, buy bullion.

It is valued by weight and purity alone, which is what separates it from a coin worth more than its metal. The standard bar weighs about four hundred troy ounces and is deliberately too heavy to run with. Central banks hold most of it.

Bill Holler · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of bullion

  1. 1nounbullionGold or silver in bars rather than coin.C1

    “The bank's vault holds gold bullion worth billions.”

bullion is precious metal.

Where it comes from

Anglo-Norman bullion is of obscure origin, perhaps connected with a word for melting or boiling.

  1. Anglo-Norman

    bullion

  2. Middle English

    bulloin

  3. English, today

    bullion

From Middle English bulloin, bullioun, from Anglo-Norman bullion, of obscure origin, perhaps from French bouillon, extending the sense to that of ‘melting’. Middle Dutch boelioen (“base metal”) seems to have come from the unrelated billon.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Jewellery & Watches

Practise this word

bullion in the wild

  • Unlike virtually all other modern bullion coins, Krugerrands have no nominal face value.

    Krugerrand

  • According to the online collector database Numista, the non-commemorative, 1 oz silver bullion Krugerrands have been minted regularly ever since.

    Krugerrand

  • Bullion is sometimes contrasted with specie, the latter being coin made of bullion (or synonymously, bullion coin).

    Bullion

  • The American Silver Eagle is the official silver bullion coin of the United States.

    American Silver Eagle

  • The American Silver Eagle bullion coin may be used to fund Individual Retirement Account investments.

    American Silver Eagle

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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.