bully – English noun declension

English noun forms of bully

Noun: bully
Singularbully
Pluralbullies

Sample Sentences

  • A playground bully pushed a girl off the swing.
  • I noticed you being a bully towards people with disabilities.
  • Besides, bullies seldom execute the threats they deal in; and men of trick and cunning are not always men of desperate resolves. [1840 September 22, Lord Palmerston, The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount of Palmerston, 3rd edition, volume 2, published 1871, page 327:]
  • And I think the facts are that Beijing is a belligerent bully jealous and envious of what Taiwan has accomplished- mainland China- that's what I get out of all of this. [1999 August 5, Jesse Helms, quotee, 1:27 from the start, in USA: CHINA/TAIWAN TENSIONS MOUNTING, Associated Press, archived from the original on 31 Jan 2026:]
  • Mr. Fisher returned from town... he had learnt that our opponents intended to shift the scene of operations to the Chats... We understood that they had hired two bullies for the purpose of deciding the matter par voie de fait. Mr Fisher hired two of the same description, who were supposed to be more than a match for the opposition party. [1849, John McLean, Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory, pages 42–3:]
  • The Proclamation Society and the Society for the Suppression of Vice were more concerned with obscene literature […] than with hands-on street battles with prostitutes and their bullies […]. [2009, Dan Cruikshank, Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, page 473:]
  • What sayest thou, Bully Bottom? [c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:]
  • Frae Team Gut to Whitley, we' coals black an' brown
  • For the Amphitrite loaded, the keel had come down—
  • But the bullies ower neet had their gobs se oft wet,
  • That the nyem o' the ship yen an' a' did forget. [1824, Robert Gilchrist, “The Skipper's Erudition”, in A Collection of Original Local Songs, page 11:]
  • I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string / I love the lovely bully. What is thy name? [1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:]
  • I have promised to be with the sweet bully early in the morning of her important day. [1753, Samuel Richardson, “Letter 15”, in The History of Sir Charles Grandison:]
  • What! manim-an—kiss your child, man alive. That I may never, but he looks at the darlin’ as if it was a sod of turf! Throth you’re not worthy of havin’ such a bully. [1848, William Carleton, Fardorougha the Miser, page 16:]

Etymology

1. From 1530, as a term of endearment, probably a diminutive ( + -y) of Dutch boel (“lover; brother”), from Middle Dutch boel, boele (“brother; lover”), from Old Dutch *buolo, from Proto-Germanic *bōlô (compare Middle Low German bôle (“brother”), Middle High German buole (“brother; close relative; close relation”) (whence German Buhle (“lover”)), Old English Bōla, Bōlla (personal name), diminutive of expressive *bō- (“brother, father”). Compare also Latvian bālinš (“brother”). More at boy.
2. The term acquired a negative connotation during the 17th century; first ‘noisy, blustering fellow’ then ‘a person who is cruel to others’. Possibly influenced by bull (“male cattle”) or via the ‘prostitute's minder’ sense. The positive senses are dated, but survive in phrases such as bully pulpit. See: Dutch Nouns 'boel', Old English Nouns 'Bōla'.

Verbs referencing "bully"

Dutch Nouns bully, Italian Nouns bullo, Irish Nouns bulaí.