Bounced

How to spell bounced

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bounced

What does bounced mean?

1. verbSprang or rebounded after striking a surface.
2. verbOf a cheque or payment, was returned unpaid because of insufficient funds.

Bounced in a sentence

• The ball bounced off the wall and rolled under the car.

• His rent cheque bounced because the account was overdrawn.

• The toddler bounced happily on the new trampoline all afternoon.

• Two direct debits bounced before payday last month.

Where does bounced come from?

Language of origin: Other

This is the past tense of the verb 'bounce', which can be traced to the Middle English word bounsen or bunsen, meaning 'to beat, thump, or strike noisily'. The earliest senses were about loud knocking and banging rather than springy movement, and the word is widely thought to be imitative in origin, echoing the dull sound of a heavy blow much as words like 'thump' and 'bump' do. By the sixteenth century the meaning had softened and shifted toward the idea of springing back after hitting a surface, the sense that dominates today. Later everyday extensions gave us the financial meaning, where a cheque that cannot be honoured is said to have bounced back to its sender, and the informal meaning of throwing an unwelcome person out of a venue, which is why a doorman is called a bouncer. The spelling keeps the 'ce' of bounce before adding -d, so the trap is simply remembering the silent 'c' and writing 'bounced' rather than 'bounst'.

How the word is built

• bounce (from Middle English bounsen: to thump, strike)
• -ed (past tense suffix)