bound.
Obliged (to).
Meaning & usage
Obliged (to).
You are not legally bound to reply.
That cannot stand alone as a free word.
Constrained by a quantifier.
Constipated; costive.
Confined or restricted to a certain place.
railbound
Unable to move in certain conditions.
snowbound
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bound, bund (preterite) and bounden, bunden, ibunden, ȝebunden (past participle), from Old English bund- and bunden, ġebunden respectively. See bind.
Ready, prepared.
Ready to start or go (to); moving in the direction (of).
Which way are you bound? —I'm already homeward bound.
Is that message bound for me?
Very likely (to), certain to
They were bound to come into conflict eventually.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- Proto-Germanic *būaną Old Norse búinnbor. Middle English bownde English bound From Middle English bownde, alternation (with -d partly for euphonic effect and partly by association with Etymology 1 above) of Middle English boun, from Old Norse búinn, past participle of búa (“to prepare”).
A boundary, the border which one must cross in order to enter or leave a territory.
I reached the northern bound of my property, took a deep breath and walked on.
Somewhere within these bounds you may find a buried treasure.
A value which is known to be greater or smaller than a given set of values.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bounde, from Old French bunne, from Medieval Latin bodina, earlier butina (“a bound, limit”).
To surround a territory or other geographical entity; to form the boundary of.
grounds bounded on three sides by a river.
France, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra bound Spain.
To be the bound of.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bounden, from the noun (see above).
A sizeable jump, great leap.
The deer crossed the stream in a single bound.
A spring from one foot to the other in dancing.
A bounce; a rebound.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English *bounden (attested as bounten), from French bondir (“leap", "bound", originally "make a loud resounding noise”); perhaps from Late Latin bombitāre (“hum, buzz”), frequentative verb, from Latin bombus (“a humming or buzzing”).
To leap, move by jumping.
The rabbit bounded down the lane.
To cause to leap.
to bound a horse
To rebound; to bounce.
A rubber ball bounds on the floor.
To cause to rebound; to throw so that it will rebound; to bounce.
to bound a ball on the floor
Where this word comes from
From Middle English *bounden (attested as bounten), from French bondir (“leap", "bound", originally "make a loud resounding noise”); perhaps from Late Latin bombitāre (“hum, buzz”), frequentative verb, from Latin bombus (“a humming or buzzing”).
simple past and past participle of bind
I bound the splint to my leg.
I had bound the splint with duct tape.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English bound, bund (preterite) and bounden, bunden, ibunden, ȝebunden (past participle), from Old English bund- and bunden, ġebunden respectively. See bind.
Try it on your idea.
bound has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
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.