Link Centre Dictionary

bulk

UK/bʌlk/ US/bʊlk/ fairly common
noun (3) verb (2)

noun

1.

the property resulting from being or relating to the greater in number of two parts; the main part

  • “the majority of his customers prefer it”
  • “the bulk of the work is finished”
Synonyms
Antonyms
2.

the property of something that is great in magnitude

  • “it is cheaper to buy it in bulk”
  • “he received a mass of correspondence”
  • “the volume of exports”
Synonyms
3.

the property possessed by a large mass

verb

1.

stick out or up

  • “The parcel bulked in the sack”
2.

cause to bulge or swell outwards

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English bulk, bolke (“a heap, cargo, hold; heap; bulge”), borrowed from Old Norse búlki (“the freight or the cargo of a ship”), from Proto-Germanic *bulkô (“beam, pile, heap”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“beam, pile, prop”). Compare Icelandic búlkast (“to be bulky”), Swedish dialectal bulk (“a bunch”), Danish bulk (“bump, knob”). Conflated with Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk”).

Phrases

  • barrel bulk
  • break bulk
  • bulk bill
  • bulk billing
  • bulk bin
  • bulk box
  • bulk cargo
  • bulk carrier
  • bulk out
  • bulk up
  • in bulk

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Causes

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.