bump into
verb
Simple meaning
Collide violently with an obstacle.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buhmpihntooSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbʌmpɪnˈtu
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
Collide violently with an obstacle
intransitiveliterally
To collide with.
transitiveliterally
To cause (a thing) to collide with.
transitiveidiomatic
To meet by chance.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Collide violently with an obstacle
Used this way, bump into is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.