bundle

UK/ˈbʌn.dl̩/US/ˈbʌn.dl̩/

nounB14 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,201 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bundles, bundled, bundling

A bundle is a heap of things tied or wrapped together so you can carry the lot in one go. A bundle of newspapers dumped outside the shop at six, a bundle of old letters with a band round them, a bundle of firewood under one arm.

It is a verb as well, and a rough one: you bundle clothes into a bag, and police bundle somebody into the back of a car — quickly, and without asking. Sellers took the word next, so a bundle is now broadband and a phone line and a television package at one price, and software comes bundled with the machine you bought it on. The collocation is a bundle of, and the phrases run to people as well as objects: a bundle of nerves cannot sit still, a bundle of joy is a baby, and a holiday that costs a bundle has cost you far too much.

Definitions of bundle

1nounbundleA number of things tied or wrapped together to be carried at once.B1~72%
“She came in with a bundle of firewood under one arm.”
synonyms: bunch, pack
2nounmarketingSeveral products or services sold together for a single price.B2~20%
“The bundle works out cheaper than paying for each one.”
3verbsellTo sell or supply several things together as one package.B2~6%
“The phone comes bundled with a year of storage.”
4verbpushTo push somebody somewhere quickly and roughly.B2~2%
“They bundled him into the back of a van before anyone spoke.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 186 sentences found in the wild and placed 171 of them on a sense (15 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

BUND-le → a BAND

A red rubber band snaps round a stack of old letters on the kitchen table. Two more bands, and the whole pile goes up under one arm.

hooks ontoband

Phrases it lives in

a bundle of nerves — somebody who is extremely anxious
cost a bundle — cost far more than you expected, said with a wince
a bundle of joy — a new baby, in the warm cliché of cards and announcements

Also practised as

nounSeveral products sold together at one price.

Where it comes from

The word is named after the string, not the things inside it. Old English byndele was a binding — a tying, a fastening with bands — and a bundle is whatever that binding happens to be holding. Wrap the same objects in nothing and you have a heap; put one band round them and you have a bundle.

Proto-Indo-European
*bʰendʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*bundil-
Old English
byndele
Middle Dutch
bondel
Middle English
bundel
English, today
bundle

Built from

byndelle · Old English — a binding; tying; fastening with bands
*bundą · Proto-Germanic — bundle

From Middle English bundel, from Middle Dutch bondel or Old English byndele, byndelle (“a binding; tying; fastening with bands”); both from Proto-Germanic bundil-, derivative of bundą (“bundle”). Compare also bindle, Dutch bundel, German Bündel.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colors, Shapes & Numbers, A Man Called Ove, Holding & Carrying

First appears in chapter 8 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

bundle in the wild

The tangent bundle comes equipped with a natural topology (described in a section below).
Tangent bundle
In marketing, product bundling is offering several products or services for sale as one combined product or service package.
Product bundling
Pursuing a bundle pricing strategy allows a business to increase its profit by using a discount to induce customers to buy more than they otherwise would have.
Product bundling
Such vector bundles are said to be trivial.
Vector bundle
Tangent bundles are not, in general, trivial bundles.
Vector bundle

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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.

Definitions of bundle

1nounbundleA number of things tied or wrapped together to be carried at once.B1~72%

“She came in with a bundle of firewood under one arm.”

synonyms: bunch, pack

2nounmarketingSeveral products or services sold together for a single price.B2~20%

“The bundle works out cheaper than paying for each one.”

3verbsellTo sell or supply several things together as one package.B2~6%

“The phone comes bundled with a year of storage.”

4verbpushTo push somebody somewhere quickly and roughly.B2~2%

“They bundled him into the back of a van before anyone spoke.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 186 sentences found in the wild and placed 171 of them on a sense (15 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.