| / English Dictionary |
BOUNDS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("bounds" is a kind of...):
extremity (the outermost or farthest region or point)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bounds"):
hairline (the natural margin formed by hair on the head)
frontier (an international boundary or the area (often fortified) immediately inside the boundary)
heliopause (the boundary marking the edge of the sun's influence; the boundary (roughly 100 AU from the sun) between the interplanetary medium and the interstellar medium; where the solar wind from the sun and the radiation from other stars meet)
border; borderline; boundary line; delimitation; mete (a line that indicates a boundary)
bourn; bourne (an archaic term for a boundary)
district line (the boundary between two districts)
county line (the boundary between two counties)
city line (the boundary of a city)
border; edge (the boundary of a surface)
end (a boundary marking the extremities of something)
demarcation; demarcation line; limit (the boundary of a specific area)
lineation; outline (the line that appears to bound an object)
surface (the extended two-dimensional outer boundary of a three-dimensional object)
shoreline (a boundary line between land and water)
Instance hyponyms:
Rubicon (the boundary in ancient times between Italy and Gaul; Caesar's crossing it with his army in 49 BC was an act of war)
Moho; Mohorovicic discontinuity (the boundary between the Earth's crust and the underlying mantle)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Present simple (third person singular) of the verb bound
Context examples:
My passion for her is beyond all bounds.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The master's domain was wide and complex, yet it had its metes and bounds.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
"That's the fun of it," began Laurie, who had got a willful fit on him and was possessed to break out of bounds in some way.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Now, as he came round the curve, he was springing in great bounds.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
You had, somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own management; but to-day you are got back again—and as I cannot be always with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command rather than mine.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
And then, France had increased by leaps and bounds, reaching out to the north into Belgium and Holland, and to the south into Italy, whilst we were weakened by deep-lying disaffection among both Catholics and Presbyterians in Ireland.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers and bounds.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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