bold.
Courageous, daring.
Meaning & usage
Courageous, daring.
Bold deeds win admiration and, sometimes, medals.
Visually striking; conspicuous.
the painter's bold use of colour and outline
Having thicker strokes than the ordinary form of the typeface.
Many bold fonts are available on this computer.
In HTML, wrapping text in <b> and </b> tags produces bold text.
Presumptuous, forward or impudent.
Naughty; insolent; badly-behaved.
All of her children are terribly bold and never do as they are told.
Full-bodied.
Pornographic; depicting nudity.
The government warned bus operators against continuing to show bold content on buses.
Steep or abrupt.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bold, bolde, bald, beald, from Old English bald, beald (“bold, brave, confident, strong, of good courage, presumptuous, impudent”), from Proto-West Germanic *balþ, from Proto-Germanic *balþaz (“strong, bold”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-, *bʰlē- (“to bloat, swell, bubble”). Cognate with Dutch boud (“bold, courageous, fearless”), Middle High German balt (“bold”) (whence German bald (“soon”)), Swedish båld (“bold, dauntless”). Perhaps related to Albanian ballë (“forehead”) and Old Prussian balo (“forehead”). Compare typologically Italian affrontare (“to face, to deal with”), sfrontato (“bold, daring, insolent”), both from Latin frons (“forehead”).
To make (a font or some text) bold.
Please bold all these subheads.
To make bold or daring.
To become bold or brave.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bolden, balden, from Old English baldian, bealdian, from Proto-Germanic *balþōną, related to *balþaz (see above). Cognate with Old High German irbaldōn (“to become bold, dare”).
A dwelling; habitation; building.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bold, from Old English bold, blod, bolt, botl (“house, dwelling-place, mansion, hall, castle, temple”), from Proto-Germanic *budlą, *buþlą (“house, dwelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to grow, wax, swell”) or *bʰuH-. Cognate with Old Frisian bold (“house”) (whence North Frisian bol, boel, bøl (“house”)), North Frisian bodel, budel (“property, inheritance”), Middle Low German būdel (“property, real estate”). Related to build.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.