bulletin
Americannoun
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a brief account or statement, as of news or events, issued for the information of the public.
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Journalism.
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a brief, prominently featured newspaper account, based upon information received just before the edition went to press.
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a similar brief account broadcast over radio or television pending further information.
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a pamphlet or monograph summarizing the past achievements, existing conditions, and future plans of a corporation, educational institution, government agency, etc., especially one cataloging the classes taught at a college or university.
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an official, special, or scholarly periodical, as of a learned society.
verb (used with object)
noun
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an official statement on a matter of public interest, such as the illness of a public figure
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a broadcast summary of the news
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a periodical publication of an association, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bulletin
1645–55; < French, perhaps < Italian bullettino, equivalent to bullett ( a ) ( bulla bull 3 + -etta -ette ) + -ino -ine 2
Explanation
A brief news report or statement that's written or spoken is a bulletin. A TV reporter might read a bulletin announcing the winner of a presidential election, for example. You're most likely to hear a bulletin on the radio or television, usually in the form of a news update. A bulletin can also be a written or emailed report or newsletter that gives you brief information. A bulletin board is a message board that has such bulletins pinned to it. The root of bulletin is the Italian bulletta, "document" or "voting slip."
Vocabulary lists containing bulletin
List 8
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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:
County Sheriff’s Department released a bulletin calling for other possible victims to come forward, detectives heard of several additional burglaries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Since first emerging online in 2019 on the online bulletin board 4chan, the Backrooms phenomenon has expanded across Reddit, TikTok, YouTube and gaming platforms, where users collectively map, narrate and extend its mythology.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
A pickup in volatility is typically associated with falling risk assets, says Watling, in a bulletin published Thursday.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 10, 2026
Yet amid the strident shouts, random rudeness and ceaseless cacophony of our current-day United States, that painting, in the quiet within those walls, offers a lesson that can seem as urgent as a breaking-news bulletin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Across from us there was a bulletin board with newspaper clippings about former students.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
In a long thread posted on X Friday, designed to replicate the ten-point commodity bulletins he published at Goldman, Currie welcomed investors to “the most asymmetric trade in modern financial history.”
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
Tide tables have become the stuff of national interest, and rare moments when the exhausted whale has blown water or flapped its fin have warranted breaking news bulletins.
From Barron's ● Apr. 23, 2026
The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t published any national terrorism advisory bulletins, periodic updates to alert the public to the current threat level, since September.
From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2026
China-linked hacks have often been the focus of these bulletins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
They exploited understandable discrepancies between the bulletins and the individual in the courtroom—was there proof that this Benjamin Jones was the Benjamin Jones in question?
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
Several times each day the struggle between Death and Life was bulletined.
From Time Magazine Archive
Several U. S. correspondents present bulletined to their editors: The likeliest candidate for the Regency is Queen Marie.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then, having made sure that the scheme has sufficient "protein," i.e., is a good idea, the proper people can be "bulletined" and the deal "teamworked" through.
From Time Magazine Archive
The doctors bulletined, "The situation is very grave."
From Time Magazine Archive
Such wireless news as the naval authorities considered well to distribute to the passengers of the Admiral 81 Pekhard was bulletined by the radio room door.
From Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils by Emerson, Alice B.
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.
