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Meaning of bull in English

bull
noun
uk
/bʊl/ us
/bʊl/

bull noun (ANIMAL)

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B1 [ C ]
a male bovine (= a group of animals that includes cattle, bison, and buffalo), or the male of another large animal such as the elephant or the whale:
They did not see the sign by the gate saying "Beware of the bull!"
a bull charges
bull elephant The zoo has plans to acquire another bull elephant.
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bovine
cattle
cow
 
Oliver Strewe/Lonely Planet Images/GettyImages
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SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Names for the male & female of animals
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bull noun (FINANCE)

[ C ]   finance & economics   specialized
a person who buys shares in companies hoping the price will rise, so that they can be sold later at a profit
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bear noun (FINANCE) specialized
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Stock markets
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bull noun (NONSENSE)

[ U ] informal
complete nonsense or something that is not true:
Don't give me that bull about not knowing the time.
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Nonsense
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bull noun (RELIGIOUS STATEMENT)

[ C ]   religion   specialized
another word for papal bull
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Religious leaders & officials
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Idioms

like a bull in a china shop
take the bull by the horns
bull
verb
uk/bʊl/ us/bʊl/
[ I + adv/prep or T ] US
to move forward in a forceful, determined way, not allowing other people or things to stop you:
bull your way His entourage bulled its way through the crowd.
bull through The ship had to bull through thick pack ice to reach the harbour.
She bulled to the finish in time to get the bronze medal.
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Advancing and moving forward
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bull verb (CLEAN)

[ T ]   military   UK specialized
to make something, especially a soldier's boots, shine by putting polish (= a cream for cleaning things) on them then rubbing them using a piece of cloth and water:
The history of bulling boots can be traced back to the early days of the British Army when soldiers were expected to maintain their own equipment.
The soldiers' boots were beautifully bulled.
They spend hours just bulling your car.
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polish
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Polishing & polishes

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Phrasal verb

bull something through
(Definition of bull from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

bull | American Dictionary

bull
noun
us
/bʊl/

bull noun (ANIMAL)

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[ C ]
the male of various animals, such as cattle:
Our herd has two bulls and twenty cows.

bull noun (NONSENSE)

[ U ] infml
nonsense or a lie:
Don’t give me that bull about not getting my message.
(Definition of bull from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

bull | Business English

bull
noun [ C ]
  FINANCE, STOCK MARKET
uk
/bʊl/ us
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someone who expects the price of shares, bonds, currency, etc. to increase, and who buys these investments in order to sell them later for a profit:
Bulls believe the US economy is beginning to pick up.
Compare
bear
→  bull market
(Definition of bull from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of bull

bull
There are some signs of the rasp on the bull's body, in the folds of the neck and under the eye (photograph 25).
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Actually, all the dictionaries come close to the essential meaning, though they scatter their definitions like buckshot and don't hit the bull's eye.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Seconds later he was on the phone again, bulling into the next prospect.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The so-called "bull's eye" images were not estimated because the anatomy of the right ventricle is nonspherical.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
In some cases, anticlericals painted churches red, heaped religious images on the bonfire and performed liturgical burlesques in which bulls were crowned bishop.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The man's beard, his eyelids, the bull's eyelid (photograph 25) and some of the channels in the hair show flat chiseling.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
In bulls, the efficiency of in vitro fertilization is highly variable amongst individual sires.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Faeces were collected from 39 yearling bulls prior to and after treatment with oxytetracycline and from 44 untreated animals.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
There might be three candidates or so left, bulling into clients.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
In bulls, there is a positive correlation between spermaster formation at the time of fertilization and the bull's fertility.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Our results confirmed a considerable variability amongst the bulls tested in the response rate of spermatozoa to heparin during incubation.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Figure 9 shows the contrast between bucrania on the east wall and modelled bulls' head below a splayed figure on the west wall.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Like young bulls in the herd some of them had to try their strength against the old patriarch.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Markerassisted selection of candidate bulls for progeny testing programmes.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
After the presentation of the champions, assisted by servants and constables, the bulls were brought into the square.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
See all examples of bull
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with bull

bull

These are words often used in combination with bull.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

bull rider
He became a bull rider at rodeos while he was still a teenager, but at the age of fifteen, he was stricken with polio.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
bull riding
Spurs used in bull riding do not have a fixed rowel, nor can they be sharpened.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
bull shark
It was found that the bull shark stayed at the mouth of the river independent of the salinity of the water.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
See all collocations with bull
What is the pronunciation of bull?
 

Translations of bull

in Chinese (Traditional)
動物, 公牛, 雄象…
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in Chinese (Simplified)
动物, 公牛, 雄象…
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in Spanish
toro, tonterías, disparates…
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in Portuguese
touro, touro [masculine]…
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in more languages
in Marathi
in Japanese
in Turkish
in French
in Catalan
in Dutch
in Tamil
in Hindi
in Gujarati
in Danish
in Swedish
in Malay
in German
in Norwegian
in Urdu
in Ukrainian
in Telugu
in Bengali
in Czech
in Indonesian
in Thai
in Vietnamese
in Polish
in Korean
in Italian
नर गाय किंवा हत्ती किंवा व्हेल सारख्या विशिष्ट प्राण्यांचा नर…
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雄牛, 雄牛（おうし）…
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boğa, erkek…, hedefin ortası…
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taureau [masculine], taureau, mâle…
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toro, brau…
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stier, bul, roos…
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ஒரு ஆண் மாடு, அல்லது யானை அல்லது திமிங்கலம் போன்ற குறிப்பிட்ட விலங்குகளின் ஆண் இனம்…
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साँड़, वृष, बैल…
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સાંઢ…
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tyr, han, centrum…
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tjur, skott- el. piltavlas centrum, mitt i prick…
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lembu jantan, sasaran dibahagian tengah…
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der Bulle, das Bullauge…
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okse [masculine], okse, hann (om hval osv.)…
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بیل, سانڈ, نر ہاتھی یا وہیل…
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бугай, бик, яблучко мішені…
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ఎద్దు…
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ষাঁড়…
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býk, střed terče…
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lembu jantan, sasaran…
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วัวตัวผู้หรือสัตว์ตัวผู้, ใจกลางเป้า…
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bò đực, con đực (cá voi, voi…)…
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byk, ‘dziesiątka‘…
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황소…
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toro, maschio (dei grandi mammiferi), centro del bersaglio…
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