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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

boulder.

A large mass of stone detached from the surrounding land.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbəʊl.də(ɹ)/Received-Pronunciation/ˈboʊl.dɚ/General-American

  1. A large mass of stone detached from the surrounding land.

  2. A particle greater than 256 mm in diameter, following the Wentworth scale

  3. A large marble, in children's games.

  4. A session of bouldering; involvement in bouldering.

Where this word comes from

From late Middle English bulder, short for Middle English bulder ston (“a stone that's been worn into a round shape, boulder, cobblestone”), possibly from Old Swedish *buldersten, itself possibly from Old Swedish bulder (“rumble, noise”) + sten (“stone”); whence dialectal Swedish bullersten (“large stone in a stream, causing water to roar around it”). The first element may alternatively be allied to Old Swedish bulle, bolle (“round drinking vessel, tumbler”), from Old Norse bolli, related to Old English bolla (“round object, bowl”), see English bowl.

verb/ˈbəʊl.də(ɹ)/Received-Pronunciation/ˈboʊl.dɚ/General-American

  1. To engage in bouldering.

    ambitransitive
Where this word comes from

From late Middle English bulder, short for Middle English bulder ston (“a stone that's been worn into a round shape, boulder, cobblestone”), possibly from Old Swedish *buldersten, itself possibly from Old Swedish bulder (“rumble, noise”) + sten (“stone”); whence dialectal Swedish bullersten (“large stone in a stream, causing water to roar around it”). The first element may alternatively be allied to Old Swedish bulle, bolle (“round drinking vessel, tumbler”), from Old Norse bolli, related to Old English bolla (“round object, bowl”), see English bowl.

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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.