Bound

How to spell bound

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bound

What does bound mean?

1. verbTo move forward with great leaping strides.
2. adjectiveTied, fastened, or under an obligation to do something.
3. adjectiveTravelling or heading towards a particular destination.
4. nounA limit or boundary marking how far something may extend.

Bound in a sentence

• verb

  The excited dog will bound across the field the moment the gate opens.

• adjective

  Under the contract she is legally bound to repay the full amount.

• adjective

  The early train is bound for the airport and leaves at six.

• noun

  The surveyor marked the lower bound of the property along the stream.

• verb

  The children bound down the stairs whenever the holidays begin.

• adjective

  The prisoner sat with his wrists tightly bound to the chair.

Where does bound come from?

Language of origin: Other

Bound is really several words that have settled on one spelling. The leaping sense came into English in the 1500s from the French verb bondir, which originally meant 'to resound' or 'to rebound' and only later shifted to the idea of springing forward. The 'tied' or 'obliged' sense is much older and native: it is simply the past participle of the verb 'bind', from Old English bindan, meaning 'to fasten'. The 'boundary' sense travelled a separate road from the Latin bodina, a frontier marker, reaching English through Old French as 'bounde'. The 'heading for' sense, as in bound for the coast, is yet another origin, from the Old Norse buinn, meaning 'prepared' or 'ready', which is why it has nothing to do with ropes at all. These distinct histories collapsed into one tidy four-letter spelling, which makes the word feel simpler than its tangled background.

How the word is built

• bound (single root; for the leap sense from Old French bondir; for the tied/obliged sense the past participle of bind)