bully
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Someone who is intentionally physically or emotionally cruel to others.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buuleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbʊli
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.
noun
A person who is intentionally physically or emotionally cruel to others, especially to those whom they perceive as being vulnerable or of less power or privilege.
A noisy, blustering, tyrannical person, more insolent than courageous; one who is threatening and quarrelsome.
A hired thug
The small scrum in the Eton College field game.
uncountable
Bully beef.
A sex worker's minder.
verb
transitive
To intimidate (someone) as a bully.
Be bossy towards
transitive
To act aggressively towards.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who is intentionally physically or emotionally cruel to others, especially to those whom they perceive as being vulnerable or of less power or privilege.
Used this way, bully is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use bully
- “A playground bully pushed a girl off the swing.”noun
- “You shouldn't bully people for being gay.”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.
The act of intimidating a weaker person to make them do something.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Start a game by a face-off.
A public office of sufficiently high rank that it provides the holder with an opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any matter.
A tropical hardwood tree yielding balata gum and heavy red timber.
Beef cured or pickled in brine.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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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.