Bind

How to spell bind

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bind

What does bind mean?

1. verbTo tie, fasten, or hold something together, or to place someone under an obligation.
2. nounAn awkward or difficult situation that is hard to escape.

Bind in a sentence

• verb

  The contract will bind both parties for two full years.

• noun

  Losing his passport the night before the flight left him in a real bind.

• verb

  She used strong twine to bind the loose stack of newspapers.

• noun

  The sudden budget cut put the whole team in a financial bind.

Where does bind come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that descends directly from the Old English verb bindan, which meant to tie, fasten, or hold fast. It belongs to a large Germanic family: close cousins survive in modern German binden and Dutch binden, and the same ancient root gave us the related nouns band, bond, and bundle. The deeper source is the Proto-Indo-European root bhendh, meaning to bind, which also fed into Sanskrit words for tying. Because bind is one of the old strong verbs of English, its past tense changed the vowel rather than simply adding an ending, which is why we still say bound rather than binded today. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable for well over a thousand years, and the long i sound comes from the historic lengthening before the n and d.

How the word is built

• bind (a single Old English root bindan meaning to tie or fasten; no prefix or suffix)