bulk

English

/bʌlk/

noun
Definitions
  • Size, specifically, volume.
  • Any huge body or structure.
  • The major part of something.
  • dietary Dietary fibre.
  • (uncountable) Unpackaged goods when transported in large volumes, e.g. coal, ore or grain.
  • (countable) a cargo or any items moved or communicated in the manner of cargo.
  • (bodybuilding) Excess body mass, especially muscle.
  • (bodybuilding) A period where one tries to gain muscle.
  • (brane cosmology) A hypothetical higher-dimensional space within which our own four-dimensional universe may exist.
  • (obsolete) The body.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English bulk derived from Old Norse búlki (the freight the cargo of a ship) derived from Proto-Germanic *bulkô (heap, beam, pile) derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (beam, pile, prop, plank, thick plank, balk) derived from Middle English bouk (belly, trunk) root from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (beam, pile, prop, plank, thick plank, balk).

Origin

Proto-Indo-European

*bʰelǵ-

Gloss

beam, pile, prop, plank, thick plank, balk

Concept
Semantic Field

The house

Ontological Category

Person/Thing

Emoji

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms