Boule
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One of the bowls used in the French game of boules.
"Wani had been wet about the game until he turned out to be good at it, and now he was absorbed and unironical, tripping after the ball, yapping and grinning when he bombed the other boules away from the jack-ball, or cochonnet."
- 2 Alternative form of buhl. alt-of, alternative, uncountable, usually
- 3 A council of citizens in Ancient Greece historical
- 4 an inlaid furniture decoration; tortoiseshell and yellow and white metal form scrolls in cabinetwork wordnet
- 5 A single-crystal ingot produced by synthetic means.
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- 6 A round loaf of bread.
- 7 A round piece of dough.
- 8 A through-sawn log with the slices restacked in the order and orientation they originally had in the log, usually with waney edges.
"Behind him is lumber 'sawn in the boule.' Wood is more commonly sawn in this manner in Europe and is stacked in the order it comes from the log."
- 1 To shape (a piece of dough) into a ball. nonstandard, rare, transitive
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Wani had been wet about the game until he turned out to be good at it, and now he was absorbed and unironical, tripping after the ball, yapping and grinning when he bombed the other boules away from the jack-ball, or cochonnet."
Etymology
From French boule. Doublet of bull (etymologies 2 and 4) and bulla, or of bowl and pulla, depending on the etymology of the French word.
Alteration of Boulle. See buhl.
Borrowed from Ancient Greek βουλή (boulḗ).
Related phrases
More for "boule"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.