bounce definition | Dictionary.com

bounce

[bouns]

verb, bounced, bounc⋅ing, noun, adverb

–verb (used without object)

1.	to spring back from a surface in a lively manner: The ball bounced off the wall.

2.	to strike the ground or other surface, and rebound: The ball bounced once before he caught it.

3.	to move or walk in a lively, exuberant, or energetic manner: She bounced into the room.

4.	to move along in a lively manner, repeatedly striking the surface below and rebounding: The box bounced down the stairs.

5.	to move about or enter or leave noisily or angrily (fol. by around, about, out, out of, into, etc.): He bounced out of the room in a huff.

6.	(of a check or the like) to fail to be honored by the bank against which it was drawn, due to lack of sufficient funds.

–verb (used with object)

7.	to cause to bound and rebound: to bounce a ball; to bounce a child on one's knee; to bounce a signal off a satellite.

8.	to refuse payment on (a check) because of insufficient funds: The bank bounced my rent check.

9.	to give (a bad check) as payment: That's the first time anyone bounced a check on me.

10.	Slang. to eject, expel, or dismiss summarily or forcibly.

–noun

11.	a bound or rebound: to catch a ball on the first bounce.

12.	a sudden spring or leap: In one bounce he was at the door.

13.	ability to rebound; resilience: This tennis ball has no more bounce.

14.	vitality; energy; liveliness: There is bounce in his step. This soda water has more bounce to it.

15.	the fluctuation in magnitude of target echoes on a radarscope.

16.	Slang. a dismissal, rejection, or expulsion: He's gotten the bounce from three different jobs.

–adverb

17.	with a bounce; suddenly.

—Verb phrase

18.	bounce back, to recover quickly: After losing the first game of the double-header, the team bounced back to win the second.

Origin:
1175–1225; ME buncin, bounsen, var. of bunkin, appar. c. D bonken to thump, belabor, bonzen to knock, bump

Related forms:

bounce⋅a⋅ble, adjective

bounce⋅a⋅bly, adverb

Synonyms:
14. animation, vivacity, life, spirit, pep, vigor, zip.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To bounce

bounce (bouns)

v. bounced, bounc·ing, bounc·es

v. intr.

To rebound after having struck an object or a surface.
To move jerkily; bump: The car bounced over the potholes.
To bound: children bouncing into the room.
To be sent back by a bank as valueless: a check that bounced.
Baseball To hit a ground ball to an infielder: The batter bounced out to the shortstop.

v. tr.

To cause to strike an object or a surface and rebound: bounce a ball on the sidewalk.
To present or propose for comment or approval. Often used with off: bounced a few ideas off my boss.
Slang
1. To expel by force.
2. To dismiss from employment. See Synonyms at dismiss.
To write (a check) on an overdrawn bank account.

A rebound.
A sudden bound, spring, or leap.
The capacity to rebound; spring: a ball with bounce.
Spirit; liveliness.
Slang Expulsion; dismissal.
Chiefly British Loud, arrogant speech; bluster.

Phrasal Verb(s):
bounce backTo recover quickly, as from a setback: The patient bounced back to good health.

[Probably from Middle English bounsen, to beat.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Bounce

Bounce\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Bounced; p. pr. & vb. n. Bouncing.] [OE. bunsen; cf. D. bonzen to strike, bounce, bons blow, LG. bunsen to knock; all prob. of imitative origin.]

1. To strike or thump, so as to rebound, or to make a sudden noise; a knock loudly.

Another bounces as hard as he can knock. --Swift.

Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart. --Dryden.

2. To leap or spring suddenly or unceremoniously; to bound; as, she bounced into the room.

Out bounced the mastiff. --Swift.

Bounced off his arm+chair. --Thackeray.

3. To boast; to talk big; to bluster. [Obs.]

Bounce

Bounce\, v. t. 1. To drive against anything suddenly and violently; to bump; to thump. --Swift.

2. To cause to bound or rebound; sometimes, to toss.

3. To eject violently, as from a room; to discharge unceremoniously, as from employment. [Collog. U. S.]

4. To bully; to scold. [Collog.] --J. Fletcher.

Bounce

Bounce\, n. 1. A sudden leap or bound; a rebound.

2. A heavy, sudden, and often noisy, blow or thump.

The bounce burst open the door. --Dryden.

3. An explosion, or the noise of one. [Obs.]

4. Bluster; brag; untruthful boasting; audacious exaggeration; an impudent lie; a bouncer. --Johnson. De Quincey.?

5. (Zo["o]l.) A dogfish of Europe (Scyllium catulus).

Bounce

Bounce\, adv. With a sudden leap; suddenly.

This impudent puppy comes bounce in upon me. --Bickerstaff.

Language Translation for : bounce

Spanish: hacer botar, botar, rebotar,

German: springen,

Japanese: はね返る

More Translations »

bounce

v.
1. [common; perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also bounce message.
2. [Stanford] To play volleyball. The now-demolished D. C. Power Lab building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball court on the front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come over the intercom the cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of known volleyballers.
3. To engage in sexual intercourse; prob. from the expression `bouncing the mattress', but influenced by Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare boink.
4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily among VMS and Unix users.
5. [VM/CMS programmers] _Automatic_ warm-start of a machine after an error. "I logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the night"
6. [IBM] To power cycle a peripheral in order to reset it.

cycle

1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper described himself as a "cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so many `clock cycles'. Often the computer can access its memory once on every clock cycle, and so one speaks also of `memory cycles'. These are technical meanings of {cycle}. The jargon meaning comes from the observation that there are only so many cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the cycles get divided up among the users. The more cycles the computer spends working on your program rather than someone else's, the faster your program will run. That's why every hacker wants more cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the computer to respond.
2. By extension, a notional unit of _human_ thought power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical hacker's think time. "I refused to get involved with the Rubik's Cube back when it was big. Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if I let myself."
3. vt. Syn. {bounce} (sense 4), {120 reset}; from the phrase `cycle power'. "Cycle the machine again, that serial port's still hung."

Jargon File 4.2.0
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bounce

c.1225, bounsen "to thump, hit," perhaps from Du. bonzen "to beat, thump," or Low Ger. bunsen, or onomatopoeic; sense probably influenced by bound (v.). Sense of "to bounce like a ball" is from 1519; the rubber check sense is from 1927. Bouncing "vigorous, big" is from 1579. First record of bouncer "a bully" is from 1833; in the saloon sense, it dates from 1883.

" 'The Bouncer' is merely the English 'chucker out'. When liberty verges on license and gaiety on wanton delirium, the Bouncer selects the gayest of the gay, and -- bounces him!" ["London Daily News," July 26, 1883]

bounce

Upward movement in the price of a security following a period of price stability or price declines. For example, a stock might get a nice bounce because of a favorable comment from an influential analyst.

bounce
1. (Perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check) An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification (a "bounce message") to the sender is said to "bounce".
2. To play volleyball. The now-demolished D. C. Power Lab building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball court on the front lawn. From 5 PM to 7 PM was the scheduled maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come over the intercom the cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of known volleyballers.
3. To engage in sexual intercourse; probably from the expression "bouncing the mattress", but influenced by Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books.
Compare boink.
4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily among VMS users.
5. (VM/CMS programmers) Automatic warm-start of a computer after an error. "I logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the night"
6. (IBM) To power cycle a peripheral in order to reset it.
[The Jargon File]
(1994-11-29)

bounce

In addition to the idioms beginning with bounce, also see get the ax (bounce); more bounce for the ounce; that's how the ball bounces.

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