Etymologically
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bullock

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bullok, also bollok,[2][3] inherited from Old English bulluc (“young bull, bull calf”),[4][5][6][7][8] a diminutive of bula (“bull”) with the suffix that is now -ock.[9][10][11][12][4] Etymonline reconstructs Proto-Germanic *bulluka-, from the stem of bull,[5] and Barnhart traces it to *bull-, earlier *buln-.[6] Holthausen compares Middle Low German bulle and German Bulle.[7] The OED compares ballock and hassock, and rejects an alleged Old English form “bulluca” as spurious.[4] The American Heritage Dictionary refers it to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young bull or bull calf: Old English, first recorded in 901 according to Barnhart, as bulloc,[6][14] and in an Old English gloss on the Liber Scintillarum in the OED.[4] Clark Hall and Holthausen gloss the Old English word as a bull calf.[8][7]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word still meant a bull calf or young steer, as in the song Sumer is icumen in (before 1300): "Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ".[2] Later it came always to mean a castrated bull, an ox.[4][5][11] From 1535, in Coverdale's Bible, it was also used of any bovine animal, especially one fattened for slaughter, a use that survived in regional English;[4] the English Dialect Dictionary records it for horned cattle of either sex in Berkshire, Norfolk, Kent and Sussex.[15] Johnson (1755) still defined it as "a young bull".[16] Latimer used it in 1537 as a joke for a papal bull,[4] and in Australian slang of the 1880s and 1890s a bullock was a heavy drinker.[4] The verb meant to bully from 1715,[4][3][17] as when Fielding wrote in Tom Jones (1749) of "bullocking you into owning the truth";[17] the Shorter Oxford takes it from the noun or as an alteration of bully.[11] In Australia and New Zealand it has meant to work very hard since 1888, after the bullock's use as a draught animal.[4][12]

Timeline

  • 901 – Old English bulloc, a young bull.[6]
  • before 1300 – bulluc, in Sumer is icumen in.[2]
  • 1535 – any bovine animal (obsolete by 1875, except in dialect).[4]
  • 1537 – jokingly, a papal bull (obsolete by 1589).[4]
  • 1715 – verb, to bully.[4]
  • 1881 – Australian slang, a heavy drinker (obsolete by 1895).[4]
  • 1888 – verb, to work strenuously, in Australia and New Zealand.[4]
  • 1909 – to bullock one's way.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bull that has been castrated; an ox or steer.[3][11][4]
  2. A young bull.[3][4][16]
  3. Loosely, any domestic bovine animal.[3][11]

Verb

  1. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) To work very hard, especially at heavy manual labour.[3][4][11]
  2. To force one's way heavily: He bullocked his way through the scrum.[11][4]
  3. (dialect) To bully or browbeat.[3][4][11]

Word family

  • bullocky
  • bullock's heart

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  8. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com