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• bounty
  bounty

  noun

  a premium or reward, especially one offered by a government.
• Bounty
  Bounty

  noun

  a British naval ship commanded by Captain William Bligh, which was on a scientific voyage in 1789 between Tahiti and the West Indies when her crew mutinied

bounty

American  

[boun-tee] / ˈbaʊn ti /

noun

• bounties
  plural

1. a premium or reward, especially one offered by a government.

   There was a bounty on his head. Some states offer a bounty for dead coyotes.

2. a generous gift.

   Synonyms:

   benefaction, present

3. generosity in giving.

   Synonyms:

   munificence, beneficence, charity, liberality

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bounty ¹ British  

/ ˈbaʊntɪ /

noun

1. generosity in giving to others; liberality

2. a generous gift; something freely provided

3. a payment made by a government, as, formerly, to a sailor on enlisting or to a soldier after a campaign

4. any reward or premium

   a bounty of 20p for every rat killed

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Bounty ² British  

/ ˈbaʊntɪ /

noun

1. a British naval ship commanded by Captain William Bligh, which was on a scientific voyage in 1789 between Tahiti and the West Indies when her crew mutinied

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Usage

What does bounty mean? A bounty is a reward, especially one offered in an official way for the capture of someone or something. This sense of the word most often refers to the reward sought by bounty hunters for tracking down and capturing fugitive criminals (or, in older times, killing them). A more recent use of the word refers to the reward offered for identifying a software vulnerability in a company’s or organization’s system. In a broader sense, the word bounty means a generous gift or generosity in general. This sense of the word is most often used in a poetic way, such as referring to crops as the bounty of the land. The H. M. S. Bounty, the ship aboard which the notorious mutiny occurred, was probably named after this sense of the word. Example: The bounty offered for the capture of Billy the Kid was $500—dead or alive.

Synonym Usage

See bonus.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• bountyless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• bounties
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bounty

1200–50; Middle English b ( o ) unte < Anglo-French, Old French bonte, Old French bontet < Latin bonitāt- (stem of bonitās ) goodness. See boon ², -ity

Explanation

If there is bounty on your table, it means you have a wide variety and large quantity of food. If there's a bounty on your head, it means the government has put out a reward for your capture. Bounty derives from the Latin bonus "good." Both meanings of bounty are connected with the idea of generosity, giving. A government known for its bounty will probably set a large bounty on the head of a murderer at large.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bounty Bounty bounties

If El-Sayed makes it to Capitol Hill, the win will represent, by far, Piker’s most impressive bounty yet.

From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026

All told, The Beatles and their magisterial producer George Martin loosed 16 amazing new songs into the world in August 1966, an incredible bounty, by any measure.

From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026

Third, incentivize states to loosen land-use restrictions by providing a $25,000 bounty tied to increasing the number of starter homes built on small lots.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

At a time when drama has come to depend on celebrity leads and commercial hype, this bounty of understated excellence is heartening.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

All day Alyce shook the young trees, climbed into the old ones, and gathered the hard-shelled bounty that fell.

From "The Midwife's Apprentice" by Karen Cushman

Now the maker of Tide detergent and Bounty paper towels has to find ways to keep momentum as Americans squeezed by inflation try to stretch budgets and find value.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

"To date, CMDR's Bounty Project, which pays a financial reward to licensed commercial fishers for marine debris removal, has removed 84 tons of large, derelict fishing gear from the Pacific Ocean."

From Science Daily ● Jun. 28, 2026

They commissioned a forensic audit into the origins of a historic financial fund known as the Queen Anne's Bounty, originally set up to support clergy and parishes and the precursor of the modern-day fund.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

Offerings include a BBQ Bounty Whopper packaged in a clamshell box shaped like the Mandalorian helmet and a blue cookie milkshake — a nod to Grogu’s favorite snack.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

At the Captain’s Bounty Motor Inn, there were no guests on the balconies.

From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen

He never saw protection of domestic manufacturing as a long-term policy but rather insisted that “continuance of bounties on manufactures long established must almost always be of questionable policy.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026

It is unclear if lifting the bounties was a part of the negotiations.

From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2025

The plant is supposed to reflect our resilience, our prickliness, our ability to thrive under punishing conditions and give bounties of good to those who know how to treat us.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2024

Come dinnertime at 5 p.m., its menu shifts to family-style meals, featuring a large seafood lineup with bounties from its live fish tanks.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 8, 2024

By treating wheat strains with such “shock therapy,” Lysenko argued that he could make the plants flower more vigorously in the spring and yield higher bounties of grain through the summer.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• donation
• gift
• largess
• premium
• prize
• reward