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:
It’s not a silver bullet that cures polarization, settles complicated policy debates or ensures that everyone gets along.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
"It's like a war happened and we were a bullet factory," the 49-year-old said, adding that five months of inventory had been "wiped out" within weeks of the conflict's outbreak in late February.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
"CBT is not a silver bullet," he told the BBC.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
“It’s trying to catch up with a bullet train,” said Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Another asserted that the bullet was inside Garfield's liver, where it would kill him either by infection or bleeding.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Antimony is a critical finishing material for bullets and other types of weaponry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 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
In the fuzzed-out “Envy the Birds,” the frontman recounts an argument between two lovers “spraying bullets of grievances”; the driving “Riptides” is narrated by a guy “too tired to end the war.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 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
Both Franklin and the French officials knew that many of the American soldiers who won the battle had fired French bullets from French guns.
From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen
But AI chatbots want even more subheads, along with bulleted lists, FAQs and quick “TL;DR” summaries of the article’s main points.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026
Less than two minutes later, Mendoza hit a leaping Charlie Becker on a perfectly bulleted pass to the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown and an eventual 10-0 lead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2026
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
Keith, on the other hand, has a face bulleted with old acne, a pointy nose, and a crooked chin.
From "I Am the Messenger" by Markus Zusak
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.
