Bold

How to spell bold

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bold

What does bold mean?

1. adjectiveShowing a willingness to take risks; confident and courageous.
2. adjectivePrinted in a thick, heavy typeface for emphasis.

Bold in a sentence

• Her bold decision to quit and start a business surprised everyone.

• Please put the headings in bold so they stand out.

• It was a bold move to challenge the manager in the meeting.

• The key warning was set in bold red text at the top of the page.

Where does bold come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English beald, meaning 'brave', 'confident', or 'daring', which itself came from a Proto-Germanic root balthaz carrying the same sense of boldness. The Germanic ancestry shows in close relatives such as the Old High German bald, also meaning 'brave', and you can still hear an echo of it in some old personal names. Over the centuries the spelling settled from beald to the modern bold, losing the early vowel cluster. The meaning broadened beyond personal courage to describe anything striking or strongly marked, which is how we arrived at 'bold' colours and 'bold' type in printing. Because the word is short, native, and phonetically regular, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable.

How the word is built

• bold (whole word from Old English beald: brave, confident); no prefix or suffix

Words that sound like bold

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• bowled: Rolled or delivered a ball, as in lawn bowls or ten-pin bowling.