Search the Dictionary

That which binds, ties, fastens,or confines, or by which anything is fastened or bound, as a cord, chain, etc.; a band; a ligament; a shackle or a manacle. Gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder, I gained my freedom. Shak.

A slave; one who is bound to service without wages. If thy brother . . . be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant: but as an hired servant. Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

The state of being bound; condition of being under restraint; restraint of personal liberty by compulsion; involuntary servitude; slavery; captivity. The King, when he designed you for my guard, Resolved he would not make my bondage hard. Dryden.

A female slave, or one bound to service without wages, as distinguished from a hired servant.

A man slave, or one bound to service without wages. "To enfranchise bondmen." Macaulay.

A surety; one who is bound, or who gives security, for another.

A collection of sheets of paper, or similar material, blank, written, or printed, bound together; commonly, many folded and bound sheets containing continuous printing or writing.

A strong chain cable, or line of spars bound together, extended across a river or the mouth of a harbor, to obstruct navigation or passage.

d menial service for his cottage; a cottier. The cottar, the bordar, and the laborer were bound to aid in the work of the home farm. J. R. Green.

A boundary; a frontier of a state or of the settled part of a country; a frontier district.

To strike or thump, so as to rebound, or to make a sudden noise; a knock loudly. Another bounces as hard as he can knock. Swift. Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart. Dryden.

ing gifts or favors; gracious or liberal giving; generosity; munificence. My bounty is as boundless as the sea. Shak.

A bound; a boundary; a limit. Hence: Point aimed at; goal. Where the land slopes to its watery bourn. Cowper. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns. Shak. Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my song. Wordsworth. To make the doctrine . . . their intellectual bourne. Tyndall.…

Full of brakes; abounding with brambles, shrubs, or ferns; rough; thorny. In the woods and braky glens. W. Browne.

s. [Obs. or Archaic as applied to material things.] Iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Bacon. It being a brave day, I walked to Whitehall. Pepys.

nt (Psoralea esculenta), found near the Rocky Mountains. It is usually oval in form, and abounds in farinaceous matter, affording sweet and palatable food.

A plant having twigs suitable for making brooms to sweep with when bound together; esp., the Cytisus scoparius of Western Europe, which is a low shrub with long, straight, green, angular branches, mintue leaves, and large yellow flowers. No gypsy cowered o'er fires of furze and broom. Wordsworth.

To bound to limit; to be at, or form, the edge of. [R.] Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts That brow this bottom glade. Milton.

Browse; also, a place abounding with shrubs where animals may browse. Browsings for the deer. Howell.

Abounding in bubbles; bubbling. Nash.