bulk

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun the property resulting from being or relating to the greater in number of two parts; the main part
  2. noun the property of something that is great in magnitude
  3. noun the property possessed by a large mass

Etymology

From Middle English bulk, bolke (“a heap, cargo, hold; heap; bulge”), borrowed from Old Norse búlki (“the freight or the cargo of a ship”), from Proto-Germanic *bulkô (“beam, pile, heap”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“beam, pile, prop”). Compare Icelandic búlkast (“to be bulky”), Swedish dialectal bulk (“a bunch”), Danish bulk (“bump, knob”). Conflated with Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

majority

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