bounds

Multiple Entries:
  bound    bind  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bound1

▶verb walk or run with leaping strides. ▶noun a leaping movement towards or over something.

– origin C16: from Fr. bond (n.), bondir (v.) ‘resound’, later ‘rebound’, from late L. bombitare, from L. bombus ‘humming’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bound2

▶noun

• 1 a boundary.

• 2 a limitation or restriction.

  ■ technical a limiting value.

▶verb

• 1 form the boundary of.

• 2 restrict.

– phrases
out of bounds

• 1 beyond the acceptable or permitted limits.

• 2 (in sport) beyond the field of play.

– origin ME: from OFr. bodne, from med. L. bodina, earlier butina.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bound3

▶adjective going towards somewhere: a train bound for Edinburgh.

■ destined to have a particular experience: they were bound for disaster.

– origin ME boun (in the sense ‘ready, dressed’), from ON búinn, past part. of búa ‘get ready’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bound4 past and past participle of bind

▶adjective

• 1 (-bound) restricted or confined to or by a place or situation: his job kept him city-bound.

• 2 certain to be or to do or have something.

  ■ obliged to do something.

• 3 (-bound) (of a book) having a specified binding.

• 4 (of a grammatical element) occurring only in combination with another form.

– phrases
I'll be bound Brit. I am sure.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bind/bʌɪnd/

▶verb (past and past part. bound)

• 1 tie or fasten (something) tightly together.

  ■ restrain (someone) by tying their hands and feet.

  ■ wrap or encircle (something) tightly.

• 2 hold in a united or cohesive group or mass.

  ■ hold or combine with (a substance) by chemical bonding.

• 3 impose a legal or contractual obligation on.

  ■ indenture (someone) as an apprentice.

  ■ secure (a contract), typically with a sum of money.

  ■ (bind someone over) (of a court of law) require someone to fulfil an obligation, typically by paying a sum of money as surety.

• 4 fix together and enclose (the pages of a book) in a cover.

• 5 trim (the edge of a piece of material) with a fabric strip.

• 6 Logic (of a quantifier) be applied to (a given variable) so that the variable falls within its scope.

• 7 (of a food or medicine) make (someone) constipated.

▶noun

• 1 informal an annoyance.

  ■ a problematical situation.

• 2 a statutory constraint.

• 3 Music another term for tie.

• 4 another term for bine.

– origin OE bindan, of Gmc origin.