bolt

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“
The sound of the bolt was already heard, and she stood suddenly up, and went forward I will live for thy sake, sweetheart!"

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Definitions (104)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (23)

  1. noun A bar made of wood or metal that slides into a socket and is used to fasten doors and gates.
  2. noun A metal bar or rod in the mechanism of a lock that is thrown or withdrawn by turning the key.
  3. noun A fastener consisting of a threaded pin or rod with a head at one end, designed to be inserted through holes in assembled parts and secured by a mated nut that is tightened by applying torque.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (58)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (7)

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Examples (50)

  • Above the bolt was a window supplied with a fine grating, which swung open, a small bolt having been removed from it, on the outside. —  Awful Disclosures Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published
  • Urgency went through me like a bolt, and I wound my arms about his neck, his long hair sliding over my bare skin, kissing him back. —  Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel 02 - Kushiel's Chosen
  • It was like ascending through great pressurized depths toward the air and light above The first ballista bolt was a surprise, ripping through his liver and tearing out his right lung before pulverizing his sternum and snagging in his rib cage. —  J
  • He was out the door like a bolt, and we heard the sound of his running feet in the street. —  Carey, Jaqueline - Kushiel's Dart orig
  • He shook loose the reins and the stallion went like a thunder-bolt, as if frantic to lose hysteria in violent physical exertion. —  Conan -- The Stories from Weird Tales (1932-1936)
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

pin ·  lock ·  shaft ·  screw ·  rod ·  lever ·  beam ·  latch ·  barrel ·  cylinder ·  blast ·  assembly

Used in the same contextWord Family

bolt:   bolts ·  bolting ·  bolted
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (7)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, from Old English, heavy arrow.
  2. Middle English bulten, from Old French buleter, from Middle High German biuteln, from biutel, bag, purse.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. from Middle English bolt (in most of the modern senses), from Anglo-Saxon bolt (only in the first sense: twice in glosses, “catapultas, speru, boltas,” to which is due, perhaps, the erroneous suggestion that Anglo-Saxon bolt is a reduced form of Latin catapulta, catapult) = Middle Dutch bolt, an arrow, later bout, Dutch bout, a pin, = Middle Low German bolte, bolten, Low German bolte, an arrow, pin, round stick, fetter, roll of linen, = Old High German Middle High German bolz, German bolz, bolzen, an arrow, a pin, = Icelandic bolti, a pin, a roll of linen (Haldorsen), = Danish bolt, a pin, band (the Scandinavian forms prob. from English or Low German); apparently an orig. Teutonic word with the primary meaning of ‘arrow’ or ‘missile.’
  2. = Scots boult, bout, bowt; from Middle English bolten, bulten (in the latter form varying in one instance with pulten, modern English pelt, q. v.), spring, start, also fetter, shackle (= Middle High German bulzen, go off like an arrow); the other senses are modern, all being derived from bolt, n., in its two main senses of ‘missile’ and ‘pin for fastening’: see bolt, n.
  3. from bolt, n. or v.
  4. Early modern English also boult, bowlt, boolt, Scots bout, bowt; from Middle English bulten, from Old French bulter, earlier buleter (modern F. bluter; Middle Latin reflex buletare) for *bureter (= Italian burattare), sift, from *buret, burete, burate, a coarse woolen cloth (cf. diminutive buretel, burtel, modern F. bluteau = Italian burattello, a bolter, meal-sieve: see boultel) (= Italian buratto, a meal-sieve, a fine transparent cloth), diminutive of bure, modern F. bure, a coarse woolen cloth, from Middle Latin burra, a coarse woolen cloth (whence also ult. English borel, burrel, bureau), from Latin burrus, reddish: see burrel, bureau, birrus, biretta, etc. Cf. bunt.
  5. Early modern English also boult, Scots bout, bowt; from Middle English bult, from bulten, bolt.
 

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/boʊlt/
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