Bullet

How to spell bullet

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bullet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bullet mean?

1. nounA small metal projectile fired from a rifle, pistol, or other firearm.
2. nounA small symbol, usually a dot, used to introduce each item in a list.

Bullet in a sentence

• The surgeon removed the bullet from his shoulder.

• She added a bullet before every action item in the report.

• Police recovered a spent bullet from the wall.

• The slide used a single bullet for each key point.

Where does bullet come from?

Language of origin: French

Bullet comes from the French boulette, a diminutive of boule meaning 'ball', so it literally described a 'little ball'. The French boule traces back to the Latin bulla, which named a rounded object such as a bubble, a knob, or a round seal. English adopted the word in the middle of the 1500s, just as firearms were becoming widespread, and at first it simply meant a small lead ball fired from a gun. As ammunition shifted from spherical lead shot to the pointed, cased rounds of modern weapons, the word kept its name even though the shape changed. The same Latin bulla also gives us 'bull' in the sense of a papal document, named for its round lead seal, and the round shape lurking behind that root is a useful reminder that bullet keeps the doubled 'l' from boule and adds the small '-et' ending.

How the word is built

• bull- (from French boule: ball)
• -et (diminutive suffix: little)