bounce
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To move quickly up and then down, once or repeatedly.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bownsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbaʊns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To move quickly up and then down (or vice versa), once or repeatedly.
transitive
To cause to move quickly up and down, or back and forth, once or repeatedly.
intransitive
To change the direction of motion after hitting an obstacle.
Spring back; spring away from an impact
To move rapidly (between).
intransitive
To leap or spring suddenly or unceremoniously; to bound.
noun
A change of direction of motion after hitting the ground or an obstacle.
A movement up and then down (or vice versa), once or repeatedly.
uncountable
A genre of hip-hop music of New Orleans, characterized by often lewd call-and-response chants.
An obstacle for a horse to jump over, consisting of two fences close together so that the horse cannot take a full stride between them, nor jump both at once.
Scyliorhinus canicula, a European dogfish.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To move quickly up and then down (or vice versa), once or repeatedly.
Used this way, bounce is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- ricochet , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use bounce
- “The ex-boxer's job is to bounce people who want to enter this private club.”verb
- “The rubber ball bounced.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Rebounding from an impact (or series of impacts).
A person whose duty is to throw troublemakers out of a bar or public meeting.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Improve in health.
Plant of European origin having pink or white flowers and leaves yielding a detergent when bruised.
Plant of European origin having pink or white flowers and leaves yielding a detergent when bruised.
An antipersonnel land mine.
Bounce a ball so that it becomes an out.
A soft elastic silicone polymer that increases in elasticity with the application of force.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to move quickly up and then down (or vice versa)
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.