Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Fearless and daring; courageous.
- adj. Requiring or exhibiting courage and bravery. See Synonyms at brave.
- adj. Unduly forward and brazen; impudent: a bold, sassy child.
- adj. Clear and distinct to the eye; conspicuous: a bold handwriting.
- adj. Steep or abrupt in grade or terrain: bold cliffs.
- adj. Printing Boldface.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Daring; courageous; brave; intrepid; fearless: applied to men or animals: as, bold as a lion.
- Requiring or exhibiting courage; planned or executed with courage and spirit: as, a bold enterprise.
- Confident; trusting; assured.
- Forward; impudent; audacious: as, a bold huzzy.
- Overstepping usual bounds; presuming upon sympathy or forbearance; showing liberty or license, as in style or expression: as, a bold metaphor.
- Standing out to view; striking to the eye; markedly conspicuous; prominent: as, a bold headland; a bold handwriting.
- Steep; abrupt: as, a bold shore (one that enters the water almost perpendicularly).
- Deep, as water, close to the shore; navigable very near to the land.
- To make bold; embolden; encourage.
- To become bold.
Wiktionary
- n. obsolete A dwelling; habitation; building.
- adj. Courageous, daring.
- adj. having thicker strokes than the ordinary form of typeface
- adj. presumptuous.
- v. transitive To make (a font or some text) bold.
- v. obsolete To be or become bold.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Forward to meet danger; venturesome; daring; not timorous or shrinking from risk; brave; courageous.
- adj. Exhibiting or requiring spirit and contempt of danger; planned with courage; daring; vigorous.
- adj. In a bad sense, too forward; taking undue liberties; over assuming or confident; lacking proper modesty or restraint; rude; impudent.
- adj. Somewhat overstepping usual bounds, or conventional rules, as in art, literature, etc.; taking liberties in composition or expression.
- adj. Standing prominently out to view; markedly conspicuous; striking the eye; in high relief.
- adj. Steep; abrupt; prominent.
- v. obsolete To make bold or daring.
- v. obsolete To be or become bold.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. clear and distinct
- n. a typeface with thick heavy lines
- adj. very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front
- adj. fearless and daring
Etymologies
- From Middle English bold, bald, beald, from Old English bald, beald ("bold, brave, confident, strong, of good courage, presumptuous, impudent"), from Proto-Germanic *balþaz (“strong, bold”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhel-, *bhlē- (“to bloat, swell, bubble”). Cognate with Dutch boud ("bold, courageous, fearless"), Middle High German balt ("bold") (whence German bald ("soon")), Swedish båld ("bold, dauntless"). Perhaps related to Albanian ballë ("forehead") and Old Prussian balo ("forehead"). For semantic development compare Italian affrontare ("to face, to deal with"), sfrontato ("brave,daring"), both from Latin frons ("forehead"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English bald; see bhel-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Text enclosed by asterisks was in bold face in the original (* bold*).”
“Text enclosed between tilde characters was in bold face in the original book (~this text is bold~).”
“He applied in public things the Spenserian line, '_Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold_,' but neither did he forget the iron door with its admonition, '_Be not too bold_.”
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859
“Text enclosed between tilde characters was in bold face in the original (~bold face~).”
“The section mentions several migratory statuses without specifically including or excluding inmigrado (emphasis in bold is mine).”
“Right there in bold is the issue with your thinking … Israel has been provoking them for 60 years straight.”
“(The "unsigned" in bold is a little confusing when you're scanning the list, but it just refers to the original price of the books.)”
“Make the title bold and in some color other than the default black.”
“In an emailed statement, Spain's Telefónica SA expressed support for the proposal, which it called a "bold political move to find a long-term structural solution to inject more competition" before "price regulation can be lifted in the coming future.”
“In an op-ed that ran in the Los Angeles Times, Bruce Barcott cheered what he described as bold parenting.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bold’.
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grade 3
ability, absorb, act, tive, actual, adopt, advantage, ambition, ancient, arrange, arctic, attitude and 125 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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INTERP - speeches can be...
adequate, adroit, blunt, blurred, committed, divisive, exacerbating, fitting, hollow, lengthy, murky, pronounced and 123 more...
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Inspirational Words
<3
wish, love, truth, smile, faded, deep, shadow, bright, life, tear, tear drop, shimmer and 9 more...
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I am : brave
brave, bold, courageous, audacious, doughty, chivalrous, gallant, gutsy, gumption, plucky, spunky, nerve and 12 more...
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This intriguing novel .... is a taut,...
Crimes committed by book reviewers. Terms here are culled shamelessly from a recent New York Times blog post, and the comments that it generated.
Seven Deadly Sins
See a...poignant, compelling, taut, lyrical, spare, eschew, limn, craft, nuanced, contrived, majestic, subtle and 52 more...
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Energetic
braze, raze, brisance, brisant, rive, catalyze, whipsaw, crack, actinic, sublimate, animate, vitalize and 88 more...
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Word List Level RED 1-40
absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advince, ambition, ancient, approach, arrange and 28 more...
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Sober/Stately/Steady
resolute, unfaltering, deliberate, resolved, circumspect, thoughtful, intent, earnest, ardent, intense, sedulous, laborious and 138 more...
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Some HTML is allowed
I don't remember all the cool stuff we can do--I'm hoping that eventually this could be a how-to list for those of us who have a hard time remembering much about code but still want to add goofy pi...
link, image, bold, italic, blockquote, strong, emphasis, underline, strike, deleted, embed, small
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jan_21
magoosh listens
infuriating, galvanize, sporadic, imperciptible, shirk, protean, versatile, auspicious, clairvoyance, nary, predilection, inkling and 63 more...
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Grade 3
Ability, absorb, ability, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient and 26 more...
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Red
Words that describe the color red.
quick, adventurous, secretive, charismatic, bold, feirce, crisp, poignant, symbolic, misunderstood, understanding, surreptitious and 10 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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Apples to Apples: Green Cards
A complete list of the green cards (adjectives) from the popular word game.
absurd, addictive, adorable, aged, American, ancient, animated, annoying, appetizing, arrogant, awesome, awkward and 237 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bold.
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