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bound

adjective · noun · verb

Simple meaning

Ready to go somewhere, or limited and held in place

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

bownd
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbaʊnd

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Ready to start or go (to); moving in the direction (of).

  2. Confined or restricted to a certain place.

  3. Confined by bonds

  4. with infinitive

    Obliged (to).

  5. Unable to move in certain conditions.

  6. with infinitive

    Very likely (to), certain to

noun

  1. often used in plural

    A boundary, the border which one must cross in order to enter or leave a territory.

  2. A sizeable jump, great leap.

  3. A spring from one foot to the other in dancing.

verb

  1. transitive

    To surround a territory or other geographical entity; to form the boundary of.

  2. intransitive

    To leap, move by jumping.

  3. transitive

    To cause to leap.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Ready to start or go (to); moving in the direction (of).

Used this way, bound 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

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

closely bound

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • boundsnounPlural form

    The line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • boundarynounDerived noun

    The line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • bounded intervalnounCompound term

    An interval that includes its endpoints.

  • bound offverbCompound term

    Bound off one point after another.

  • bound formnounCompound term

    A morpheme that occurs only as part of a larger construction.

  • bound morphemenounCompound term

    A morpheme that occurs only as part of a larger construction.

  • lower boundnounCompound term

    A number equal to or less than any other number in a given set.

  • out of boundsnounCompound term

    A line that marks the side boundary of a playing field.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: ready to start or go (to)

orientedorientated

noun

Sense: boundary

confine

Antonyms

Sense: ready to start or go (to)

unbound

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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.