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.
a generous gift.
generosity in giving.
generosity in giving to others; liberality
a generous gift; something freely provided
a payment made by a government, as, formerly, to a sailor on enlisting or to a soldier after a campaign
any reward or premium
a bounty of 20p for every rat killed
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.
See bonus.
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
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.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A passenger from the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship is in quarantine on tiny Pitcairn Island, a volcanic outcrop in the South Pacific famously settled by mutineers from the HMS Bounty.
From Barron's • May 15, 2026
Procter & Gamble, which makes Tide detergent, Bounty paper towels and Crest toothpaste, said this week it was seeing more caution from American consumers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025
My research, like the HSCA’s, has relied upon the same basic set of facts about who beyond Byers was told what—and when they were told—about the Byers Bounty: three people, all told after the assassination.
From Slate • Dec. 1, 2025
The world of “Star Wars” is full of scoundrels that fans can’t help but love for their swagger and independent moral code, and “Visions” installments “The Smuggler” and “The Bounty Hunters” add to that legacy.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 4, 2025
In Mutiny on the Bounty, when people died at sea, they were wrapped in white sheets and thrown overboard with millstones around their necks so that the corpses wouldn’t float.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
