bulk

Pronunciation: /bʌlk/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun the property resulting from being or relating to the greater in number of two parts; the main part
  2. noun the property of something that is great in magnitude
  3. noun the property possessed by a large mass

Etymology

From Middle English bulk, bolke (“a heap, cargo, hold; heap; bulge”), borrowed from Old Norse búlki (“the freight or the cargo of a ship”), from Proto-Germanic *bulkô (“beam, pile, heap”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“beam, pile, prop”). Compare Icelandic búlkast (“to be bulky”), Swedish dialectal bulk (“a bunch”), Danish bulk (“bump, knob”). Conflated with Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

majority

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
number
Opposite (antonyms)
minority

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