Jump To:

• bond
  bond

  noun

  something that binds, fastens, confines, or holds together.
• Bond
  Bond

  noun

  Carrie (Minetta) Carrie Jacobs-Bond, 1862–1946, U.S. songwriter and author.

bond

¹ American  

[bond] / bɒnd /

noun

1. something that binds, fastens, confines, or holds together.

   Synonyms:

   fetters, chains

2. a cord, rope, band, or ligament.

3. something that binds a person or persons to a certain circumstance or line of behavior.

   the bond of matrimony.

4. something, as an agreement or friendship, that unites individuals or peoples into a group; covenant.

   the bond between nations.

5. binding security; firm assurance.

   My word is my bond.

6. a sealed instrument under which a person, corporation, or government guarantees to pay a stated sum of money on or before a specified day.

7. any written obligation under seal.

8. Law. a written promise of a surety.

9. Government. the state of dutiable goods stored without payment of duties or taxes until withdrawn.

   goods in bond.

10. Also called bonded whiskey.  a whiskey that has been aged at least four years in a bonded warehouse before bottling.

11. Finance. a certificate of ownership of a specified portion of a debt due to be paid by a government or corporation to an individual holder and usually bearing a fixed rate of interest.

12. Insurance.

    1. a surety agreement.

    2. the money deposited, or the promissory arrangement entered into, under any such agreement.

13. a substance that causes particles to adhere; binder.

14. adhesion between two substances or objects, as concrete and reinforcing strands.

15. Also called chemical bond.  Chemistry. the attraction between atoms in a molecule or crystalline structure.

16. bond paper.

17. Masonry.

    1. any of various arrangements of bricks, stones, etc., having a regular pattern and intended to increase the strength or enhance the appearance of a construction.

    2. the overlap of bricks, stones, etc., in a construction so as to increase its strength.

18. Electricity. an electric conductor placed between adjacent metal parts within a structure, as in a railroad track, aircraft, or house, to prevent the accumulation of static electricity.

19. Obsolete. bondsman.

---

verb (used with object)

• bonds,
  present (3rd person singular)
• bonded,
  past participle,  past
• bonding
  present participle

1. to put (goods, an employee, official, etc.) on or under bond.

   The company refused to bond a former criminal.

2. to connect or bind.

3. Finance. to place a bonded debt on or secure a debt by bonds; mortgage.

4. to join (two materials).

5. Masonry. to lay (bricks, stones, etc.) so as to produce a strong construction.

6. Electricity. to provide with a bond.

   to bond a railroad track.

7. to establish a close emotional relationship to or with (another).

   the special period when a mother bonds to her infant.

verb (used without object)

• bonds,
  present (3rd person singular)
• bonded,
  past participle,  past
• bonding
  present participle

1. to hold together or cohere, from or as from being bonded, as bricks in a wall or particles in a mass.

2. Psychology, Animal Behavior. to establish a bonding.

bond ² American  

[bond] / bɒnd /

noun

1. a serf or slave.

---

adjective

1. in serfdom or slavery.

Bond ³ American  

[bond] / bɒnd /

noun

1. Carrie (Minetta) Carrie Jacobs-Bond, 1862–1946, U.S. songwriter and author.

2. Julian, 1940–2015, U.S. civil rights leader and politician.

---

bond ¹ British  

/ bɒnd /

noun

1. something that binds, fastens, or holds together, such as a chain or rope

2. (often plural) something that brings or holds people together; tie

   a bond of friendship

3. (plural) something that restrains or imprisons; captivity or imprisonment

4. something that governs behaviour; obligation; duty

5. a written or spoken agreement, esp a promise

   marriage bond

6. adhesive quality or strength

7. finance a certificate of debt issued in order to raise funds. It carries a fixed rate of interest and is repayable with or without security at a specified future date

8. law a written acknowledgment of an obligation to pay a sum or to perform a contract

9. insurance a policy guaranteeing payment of a stated sum to an employer in compensation for financial losses incurred through illegal or unauthorized acts of an employee

10. any of various arrangements of bricks or stones in a wall in which they overlap so as to provide strength

11. See chemical bond

12. See bond paper

13. commerce deposited in a bonded warehouse

---

verb

1. (also intr) to hold or be held together, as by a rope or an adhesive; bind; connect

2. aeronautics to join (metallic parts of an aircraft) together such that they are electrically interconnected

3. to put or hold (goods) in bond

4. law to place under bond

5. finance to issue bonds on; mortgage

6. to arrange (bricks, etc) in a bond

Bond ² British  

/ bɒnd /

noun

1. Edward . born 1934, British dramatist: his plays, including Saved (1965), Lear (1971), Restoration (1981), and In the Company of Men (1990), are noted for their violent imagery and socialist commitment

---

bond Scientific  

/ bŏnd /

1. A force of attraction that holds atoms or ions together in a molecule or crystal. Bonds are usually created by a transfer or sharing of one or more electrons. There are single, double, and triple bonds.

2. See also coordinate bond covalent bond ionic bond metallic bond polar bond

---

bond Cultural  

1. A security issued by a corporation or public body and usually carrying a fixed rate of interest and a set date, called the bond's maturity, for redemption of the principal. Like a stock, a bond is a type of investment, but unlike a stock, a bond has a definite, but not necessarily fixed, yield. Some bonds have a feature known as a call, which gives the borrower an option to pay off the principal of the bond before its maturity, the date when the bond is due to be redeemed. (See municipal bonds and Treasury bills.)

---

Usage

What is a basic definition of bond? A bond is something that binds or fastens things together, something that unites people, or an attraction between atoms in a molecule. Bond has many other senses as a noun and a verb. Bond can refer to anything that holds or links things together. For example, glue is commonly used as a bond to make things stick to each other. Bond is often used in the plural when referring to things like shackles or handcuffs that bind multiple parts of the body. In this sense, bond is often used figuratively to refer to things that bind or restrict a person’s liberty or freedom.

• Real-life examples: Glue, rope, zip ties, cables, pins, and staples are examples of things used as bonds. Prisoners are often kept in bonds, like chains, handcuffs, and shackles, to prevent them from escaping. Throughout history, people have rebelled against the bonds of tyranny, that is, oppression of a government they think is unfair or unjust.
• Used in a sentence: We freed the prisoners from their metal bonds. 

This sense of bond is also used as a verb to mean to bind things together.

• Used in a sentence: The welder bonded the steel sheets to each other. 

In a similar sense, bond is used in chemistry to refer to an attraction between atoms that hold them together to form molecules. These are also known as chemical bonds and they are a very important concept to molecular chemistry.

• Real-life examples: Chemical bonds are further divided into specific kinds of bonds that hold molecules together. Different types of bonds include covalent bonds, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds, coordinate bonds, and metallic bonds.
• Used in a sentence: Professor Smith used a model to show us the bonds between atoms in a molecule of ammonia. 

Bond is also used in a figurative sense to refer to agreements or relationships that unite people. In this sense, bond often specifically refers to an especially close or trusting relationship.

• Real-life examples: You are connected to your family and friends by a close bond. You may also form close bonds with your pet. Countries that are allies have a close bond and usually promise to help or protect each other.
• Used in a sentence: John and Paul have a strong bond of friendship and they think of each other as brothers. 

Closely related to this sense, bond is used as a verb to mean to form a strong emotional relationship with someone.

• Used in a sentence: I bonded with my father during the many fishing trips we went on together. 

Synonym Usage

Bond, link, tie agree in referring to a force or influence that unites people. Bond, however, usually emphasizes the strong and enduring quality of affection, whereas tie may refer more especially to duty, obligation, or responsibility: bonds of memory; Blessed be the tie that binds; family ties. A link is a definite connection, though a slighter one; it may indicate affection or merely some traceable influence or desultory communication: a close link between friends.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• bonder
  noun
• bondable
  adjective
• bondless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• bonding
  present
• bonded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• bond
  simple
• bonds
  simple
• have bonded
  perfect
• has bonded
  perfect
• am bonding
  progressive
• are bonding
  progressive
• is bonding
  progressive
• have been bonding
  perfect progressive
• has been bonding
  perfect progressive

Past

• bonded
  simple
• had bonded
  perfect
• was bonding
  progressive
• were bonding
  progressive
• had been bonding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will bond
  simple
• will have bonded
  perfect
• will be bonding
  progressive
• will have been bonding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of bond¹

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English noun bond, band, bound; variant of band ³

Origin of bond²

First recorded before 1050; Middle English bonde, bande, bounde “tenant farmer, villager,” Old English bonda “husband, head of a household,” from Old Norse bōndi “farmer, peasant,” contraction of unattested bōande, variant of būande, cognate with Old English būend “dweller,” equivalent to bū(an) “to dwell” + -end noun suffix, as in fiend, friend; see also boor, husbandman

Explanation

You and your best friend have a bond that allows you to trust each other with all your thoughts and secrets. A bond is a connection between two things. Bond can refer to a physical or emotional restraint as in a prisoner who might tear off his bonds and escape to freedom. If you are arrested, your parents will have to pay a bond to get you released from jail. If you don't show up to court, they will lose that money. A certificate of debt issued by a government or corporation is also called a bond. When you cash in the bond on a set date, you get your money back plus interest. In its meaning of "connection," bond can be used as a verb. Have you ever met someone and felt an instant connection? You can say that you bonded.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bond Bond bonds bonded bonding

The bond between the two women is so strong that 55 years ago Kathleen named her daughter after Shirley.

From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026

Moves in government bond and currency markets were relatively muted, giving some comfort that the turmoil was confined to the stock market.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

Isabel Wang explained how the global oil market has become the most important factor influencing the stock and bond markets.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026

“When they meet it’s a different type of bond through the music — like ‘I’ve always felt on the outside,’ but also ‘We are so inside,’” she says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026

Most people didn’t understand how what amounted to a two-decade boom in the bond market had overwhelmed everything else.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Trump Jr. exchanged vows with socialite Bettina Anderson on a private island that was featured in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale.”

From Salon ● Sep. 14, 2026

Roger Bond, from Plymouth, who went to his first session when he was "in a very dark place" about three years ago, said he had "never looked back".

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

Bond yields will also be in focus as global debt markets contend with expectations of higher interest rates, inflation concerns and worries about the U.S. fiscal outlook.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

For a long-dated example of how high yields have gotten, the chart above shows that the Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index’s yield has increased to 4.98%.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026

Bond technicians could dream up ever more complicated securities without worrying too much about government regulation—one reason why so many derivatives had been derived, one way or another, from bonds.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Corporate bonds fared even worse than ICE BofA’s index of Treasury bonds, which lost about 13%.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026

The market might also get a break from another corner: reduced issuance of bonds by so-called hyperscaler AI companies such as Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Oracle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026

But investors shouldn’t throw out corporate bonds just because rates are rising.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026

That is well above what bonds typically pay.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026

Because the lenders sold many—though not all—of the loans they made to other investors, in the form of mortgage bonds, the industry was also fraught with moral hazard.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

"The minute they met, first they bonded over football," he laughed.

From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026

In Tbilisi, Ms. Goldberg and her friends bonded with an 11-year-old boy named Avi who, through complicated means, was already carrying on a correspondence with a Jewish boy in Philadelphia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026

The couple went to their favorite fast-food joint, Cafe Rio, because it was something they bonded over during their overseas trip.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026

And if so, what would this mean to my angel boyfriend whom I deeply loved, but had mutually bonded with over not wanting marriage?

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

I felt as if we were two small trees standing beside each other, leaning towards each other, our branches and twigs starting to entwine, bonded by our secret and by our growing friendship.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler

They typically use web-based apps to make calls from numbers that mirror a local sheriff’s office or bonding agency, according to authorities, and even set up convincing voicemails for when targets ring them back.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

Workers failed to apply enough primer in some areas, preventing layers of the liner from bonding properly.

From Salon ● Sep. 12, 2026

Conservationists are hopeful that two bonding beavers who were released into the wild earlier in 2026 could help to strengthen the population of the creatures.

From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026

They’re no longer those high schoolers bonding between rounds of Pop-A-Shot.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

Mom thought a piano course would be a bonding experience for her, Celia, and me after Dad moved out.

From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison

Related Words

• certificate
• debenture
• obligation
• security
• transaction
• warrant