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  • bountiful
    bountiful
    adjective
    liberal in bestowing gifts, favors, or bounties; munificent; generous.
  • Bountiful
    Bountiful
    noun
    a city in N Utah, near Salt Lake City.
Synonyms

bountiful

1 American  
[boun-tuh-fuhl] / ˈbaʊn tə fəl /

adjective

  1. liberal in bestowing gifts, favors, or bounties; munificent; generous.

  2. abundant; ample.

    a bountiful supply.


Bountiful 2 American  
[boun-tuh-fuhl] / ˈbaʊn tə fəl /

noun

  1. a city in N Utah, near Salt Lake City.


bountiful British  
/ ˈbaʊntɪfʊl /

adjective

  1. plentiful; ample (esp in the phrase a bountiful supply )

  2. giving freely; generous

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Usage

What does bountiful mean? Bountiful describes something abundant or plentiful. For example, if you have so many pens that you think you’ll never run out of them, you could say you have a bountiful supply of pens. Bountiful also means generous, especially in giving gifts or favors. For example, you could say that a new job is bountiful because it pays a lot of money or has a lot of benefits, like its own coffee bar with a barista, hammocks, and a skateboard park. Example: The city had a bountiful supply of interesting museums to visit.

Synonym Usage

See generous. See plentiful.

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of bountiful

First recorded in 1500–10; bounty + -ful

Explanation

Bountiful means abundant or given generously. We celebrate the idea of a bountiful harvest with a Thanksgiving cornucopia overflowing with its bounty of pumpkins, apples, squashes, and cranberries. Bountiful can also mean generously given, with the idea that the original bounty of a harvest came from the gods you prayed to for rain and sun. When you received their gifts, you thanked them for their generosity. Now, bountiful giving is something you might experience with your parents or grandparents, happy just to see you smile on your birthday.

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Vocabulary lists containing bountiful

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Her young Guernsey calf, "Empress Bountiful Crunch" has just won first prize in her class.

From BBC • Oct. 3, 2024

Voters at Millcreek Junior High School in Bountiful engaged in structured debates for more than an hour.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 6, 2024

Researchers placed the portable technology next to an existing regulatory sensor at the Bountiful Utah Division of Air Quality site from Aug. 30, 2021-Aug.

From Science Daily • Feb. 26, 2024

Bountiful discoveries of newfound worlds—and with them, perhaps, the revelation of more “loopholes”—could come relatively soon via NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is due to launch by May 2027.

From Scientific American • Oct. 5, 2023

Another gale had ripped away the rigging of die Bountiful Harvest, forcing Salla to have her taken under tow.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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