Bolt-on
adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An accessory that can be bolted on or otherwise attached. also, figuratively
"Some guitars have the neck glued to the body (Les Pauls), some are bolted on (Fenders), and in some the neck is part of one piece of wood that extends through the body (Jackson). The theory of the neck through the body design is that if the pickups, bridge, and the strings (from tuners to tailpiece) are mounted on the same piece of wood, sustain will be greatly enhanced. In practice, a well joined glue-on and a properly fitted bolt-on will sustain just as well."
- 2 A functionality or service that can be added to an existing arrangement or plan (for example, a mobile telephone subscription). figuratively
"[I]f an innovation has reached the maturity stage of the product life-cycle, then perhaps its functionality will be developed to provide a ‘bolt-on’, with the core of the innovation remaining essentially the same. A classic example of a sustained innovation is the mobile phone, where functionality is increased by adding on extra capabilities, such as video, Internet acss, GPS tracking systems, music, and email."
- 3 A breast implant. plural, slang
- 1 Of an accessory: capable of being bolted on or otherwise attached. not-comparable
"[T]he first model of this now most famous line of related types, the [Gibson] Les Paul also appeared in 1952, […] The trapeze style tailpiece and combined bar bridge was also fitted, although this gave way to a bolt-on bar bridge by 1953."
- 2 Used to extend an existing system, operating as an add-on or plug-in. figuratively, not-comparable
"This week we take a close look at four top contenders in the multitasking arena […] All the multitasking systems available for microcomputers today fall into one of two distinct categories: "bolt-on" multitaskers, which add multitasking to an operating system (DOS, for example) that originally executed one task at a time; and "built-in" multitaskers, which are part of the operating system by design."
Example
More examples"Some guitars have the neck glued to the body (Les Pauls), some are bolted on (Fenders), and in some the neck is part of one piece of wood that extends through the body (Jackson). The theory of the neck through the body design is that if the pickups, bridge, and the strings (from tuners to tailpiece) are mounted on the same piece of wood, sustain will be greatly enhanced. In practice, a well joined glue-on and a properly fitted bolt-on will sustain just as well."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.