a usually subterranean and often globular bud having fleshy leaves emergent at the top and a stem reduced to a flat disk, rooting from the underside, as in the onion and lily.
a plant growing from such a bud.
any round, enlarged part, especially at the end of a cylindrical object: the bulb of a thermometer.
Electricity.
the glass housing, in which a partial vacuum has been established, that contains the filament of an incandescent electric lamp.
an incandescent or fluorescent electric lamp.
Anatomy. any of various small, bulb-shaped structures or protuberances: olfactory bulb; bulb of urethra.
a rounded organ of vegetative reproduction in plants such as the tulip and onion: a flattened stem bearing a central shoot surrounded by fleshy nutritive inner leaves and thin brown outer leavesCompare corm
a plant, such as a hyacinth or daffodil, that grows from a bulb
1560s, "an onion," from Middle French bulbe (15c.), from Latin bulbus "bulb, bulbous root, onion," from Greek bolbos "plant with round swelling on underground stem." Expanded by 1800 to "swelling in a glass tube" (thermometer bulb, light bulb, etc.).
A rounded underground storage organ that contains the shoot of a new plant. A bulb consists of a short stem surrounded by fleshy scales (modified leaves) that store nourishment for the new plant. Tulips, lilies, and onions grow from bulbs. Compare cormrhizomerunnertuber.
