Bond

How to spell bond

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bond

What does bond mean?

1. nounA close relationship or emotional connection between people or things.
2. nounA certificate issued by a government or company promising to repay borrowed money with interest.
3. verbTo join firmly together, or to form a close connection.

Bond in a sentence

• noun

  The years they spent together created a strong bond between the sisters.

• noun

  She moved part of her savings into a ten-year government bond.

• verb

  The glue will bond the two surfaces within minutes.

• noun

  A shared sense of humour formed an instant bond between the new colleagues.

• noun

  The council issued a bond to fund the new bridge.

• verb

  New recruits tend to bond quickly during the first week of training.

Where does bond come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word is a variant of 'band', and both ultimately trace back to the same Old English and Old Norse root that gave us the verb 'bind', from a Germanic source meaning 'to tie or fasten'. In its earliest English use 'bond' literally meant anything used to bind, such as a rope, fetter, or chain, and you can still hear that physical sense in phrases about being in bonds. From the concrete idea of a physical tie the word stretched naturally into figurative ties: a promise or covenant that binds people, then the emotional connection between them. The legal and financial senses grew from the notion of a binding written obligation, which is how a sealed promise to repay money came to be called a bond. The spelling stayed short and simple, but note that 'bond' and 'band' are genuinely the same word wearing different vowels, which helps explain why both carry the idea of holding things together.

How the word is built

• bond (variant of 'band', from the root of bind: that which ties or fastens)