bullet
Americannoun
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bullets
plural
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a small metal projectile, part of a cartridge, for firing from small arms.
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a cartridge.
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a small ball.
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Printing. a heavy dot for marking paragraphs or otherwise calling attention to or itemizing particular sections of text, especially in display advertising.
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Cards. an ace.
verb (used without object)
idioms
noun
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a small metallic missile enclosed in a cartridge, used as the projectile of a gun, rifle, etc
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the entire cartridge
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something resembling a bullet, esp in shape or effect
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stock exchange a fixed interest security with a single maturity date
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commerce a security that offers a fixed interest and matures on a fixed date
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commerce
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the final repayment of a loan that repays the whole of the sum borrowed, as interim payments have been for interest only
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( as modifier )
a bullet loan
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slang dismissal, sometimes without notice (esp in the phrases get or give the bullet )
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printing See centred dot
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See bite
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of bullet
1550–60; < Middle French boullette, equivalent to boulle ball ( see bowl 2) + -ette -ette
Explanation
A bullet is the metal object that is fired out of a gun when its trigger is pulled. Without bullets, a gun is harmless. If someone talks about ammunition for a gun, they're talking about bullets. A bullet doesn't usually contain explosives but does its damage by penetrating whatever — or whomever — it hits. The Middle French source of bullet is boulette, "cannonball" or "small ball," from boule, "a ball," with its Latin root bulla, "round thing." To "bite the bullet" means to withstand an unpleasant but necessary situation, from the (possibly fictitious) practice of patients biting bullets during painful operations.
Vocabulary lists containing bullet
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.
See Examples For:
Months before, a bullet had ended the life of his beloved Pebbles, who left behind a nest with eggs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
Yoni Finlay, who was hit by a stray police bullet while helping to barricade the doors during the attack, will also speak at the service.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
Hallaq's uncle, also named Mohammed Hallaq, told AFP that his nephew was killed by a stray bullet during a confrontation between the army patrol and a group of older youths.
From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026
They also say a bullet train, and all the construction, would disrupt their peaceful downtown.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Still, they believed the bullet had most likely gone downward into the pelvic region.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
A few minutes later he added, “He probably gave me the good genes to survive lol … Guided the bullets or something.”
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
He even devises a way to keep the goats corralled so that he doesn’t have to chase them down or use up his precious bullets and gunpowder.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
In it he can be heard shouting to one overly enthusiastic fighter, who is firing at junta positions, "save your bullets, easy, easy!"
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026
Together they scrapped the non-confrontational "hugs not bullets" policy of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and pursued open collaboration with US security agencies.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
The shots from the helicopter were like bullets in Owen’s heart.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
For a follow-up about “top family-friendly hikes,” Siri delivered a clean, bulleted list, citing several web sources.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
He has used his office window, which overlooks the 101 Freeway, as a whiteboard of sorts, with a list of five bulleted words written in black marker on the glass: Empower.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2023
He noticed that he had most of the symptoms on the bulleted list.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 16, 2023
Next quarter Gannett will roll out a live pilot program using AI to identify the most important points of an article and create bulleted summaries at the top of it.
From Reuters ● Jun. 16, 2023
Oksi bulleted down from the sky and alighted on the wooden box.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Wright — out of necessity, or sanity-preservation — moves chronologically, bulleting each of their 25 albums and chasing Sparks' hope for fortune and adoration across their many troughs and peaks.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2021
With one snap of her head, she redirects all the momentum from the cross, bulleting the ball into the near corner.
From Slate ● Jun. 19, 2019
“Society to working moms:” she wrote in the April 18 post before bulleting a list of the unreasonable expectations the modern mother faces.
From Fox News ● Apr. 27, 2019
In the distance, a monstrous wheel of metal with a thousand sharp, jagged teeth spun wildly, tearing at the coal, sending shards of black rock bulleting through the air.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2015
He’s bulleting to the front door and I catch up with him.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
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.
