bulldog
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bulldog", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bulldog" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bulldog" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bulldog is aEnglishnoun. It means: A breed of dog developed in England by the crossing of the bullbaiting dog and the Pug to produce a ladies' companion dog, having a very smooth coat, a flattened face, wrinkly cheeks, powerful fron... Pronounced /ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/. Often confused with bullion.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bulldog |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #17,562 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bulldog is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbʊl.dɒɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,562 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for bulldog, with forms such as "bbulldog", "bluldog", and "buldlog". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "bullion", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From bull + dog, in reference to bullbaiting. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bulldog, spelled B-U-L-L-D-O-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A breed of dog developed in England by the crossing of the bullbaiting dog and the Pug to produce a ladies' companion dog, having a very smooth coat, a flattened face, wrinkly cheeks, powerful front legs, and smaller hind legs.
- 2A breed of dog developed in England by the crossing of the bullbaiting dog and the Pug to produce a ladies' companion dog, having a very smooth coat, a flattened face, wrinkly cheeks, powerful front legs, and smaller hind legs.
- 3A stubborn or determined person.
- 4A refractory material used as a furnace lining, obtained by calcining the cinder or slag from the puddling furnace of a rolling mill.
- 5One of the proctors' officers.
- 6Any move in which the wrestler grabs an opponent's head and jumps forward, so that the wrestler lands, often in a sitting position, and drives the opponent's face into the mat.
- 7A bulldog edition.
- 8Any of various species of African freshwater fish in the genus Marcusenius, a type of elephantfish.
- 9The children's game of British Bulldog or Red Rover.
Etymology
From bull + dog, in reference to bullbaiting.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbulldog,bluldog,buldlog,buldog,bullddog,bulldgo,bulldogg,bullodg,ublldog
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bulldog
Misspelling Variants of "bulldog"
Frequency rank: #17,562 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: