buller

See also: Buller

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbʊlə(ɹ)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbʊlɚ/

Etymology 1

From Scots buller (“to boil, seethe”). Of obscure origin. Probably related to Old Norse bulla (“to boil”) and Old French bullir (“to boil”), Latin bullio (“I boil”), all from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“swelling”).

Verb

buller (third-person singular simple present bullers, present participle bullering, simple past and past participle bullered)

1. To boil or seethe.
   • 1821, James Hogg, Winter Evening Tales: Collected Among the Cottagers in the South of Scotland:

     The still liquid element startled uprears, It bubbled and bullered and roared in his ears, Like thunder that gallows on high.

   • 1842, Robert Wodrow, Analecta: Or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences Mostly Relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians:

     If this wer a good argument, to prove a man's sins wer not pardoned, because he still finds corruption bullering up in him, then none in the world should have their sin pardoned!

   • 2011, John Craig, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948, →ISBN, page 24:

     The end of an assay in the Edinburgh mint was described exactly so in 1639: 'in this haill tyme it was always bullering and as it were seithing bot so soone as it settled and rested from so doeing (al the quhich tyme there did appeir some cleir twinkling sparkles into it)' the assayer 'tooke it forthe bot not in ane instant bot softely by retireing and advancing.

Noun

buller (plural bullers)

1. The bubbling or seething of a torrent.

Translations

bubbling or seething of a torrent

• Finnish: kohina (fi); jyminä (fi) (really loud)

Etymology 2

From Scots buller, bullir (“to bellow, roar”), likely of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *bellaną (“to roar”). Compare Danish buldre (“to rumble”), Swedish bullra (“to make a noise, roar, rumble”).

Verb

buller (third-person singular simple present bullers, present participle bullering, simple past and past participle bullered)

1. To make a lot of noise.
   • 1818, Sir Walter Scott, The Heart of Mid-Lothian:

     "Sae we let go the rape,” said David, “ and he went adown the water screeching and bullering like a Bull of Bashan, as he's ca'd in Scripture.”

   • 1828, John Spalding, The History of the Troubles and Memorable Transactions in Scotland and England:

     It never shrinked nor feared, but would dowk under the water, snorting and bullering, terrible to the hearers and beholders.

   • 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, David Balfour, page 331:

     On the other side there lay a lighted suburb, which we thridded for a while, then turned into a dark lane, and presently found ourselves wading in the night among deep sand where we could hear a bullering of the sea.

2. To force one's way; to be pushy.
   • 1989, Fred Urquhart, Graeme Roberts, Full Score: Short Stories, page 69:

     It was not that he bullered and swore like so many of his farmer neighbours. Their men knew what to expect from them, and they swore back, knowing that the next day they could speak to them as if nothing had happened. But Will Murray was different. His word was law.

   • 1996, Colophon Press, Madam X. - Issue 1, page 23:

     The door of the vet's banged open and the receptionist bullered out.

   • 2005, John Aberdein, Amande's Bed, →ISBN, page 8:

     But it's Christmas the morn's morn — It bullered, throbbed like a U-boat, black.

Translations

to make a lot of noise

• Finnish: jylistä, mekastaa (fi)

to force one's way

• Finnish: tunkea (fi), tunkeutua (fi)

Etymology 3

bull +‎ -er

Noun

buller (plural bullers)

1. A steer that allows itself to be mounted by bulls when in the crowded conditions of a feedlot.
   • 1997, Jack L. Albright, Clive Wendell Arave, The Behaviour of Cattle, page 253:

     Male cattle ('riders') in intensive housing are prone to mount herdmates willing to stand to be mounted ('bullers'). The buller-steer syndrome has been estimated to cost $70 per head, which can represent significant losses in large feedlots (Blackshaw et al., 1997). Incidence of bullers in a feedlot was about 2% (409 bullers in 20,428 mixed breed steers, Irwin et al., 1979).

   • 2008, G. John Benson, Bernard E. Rollin, The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions, →ISBN, page 200:

     The annual incidence of buller steers within the feedlot industry is reported to fall between 2 and 4 percent, but the incidence per pen can be quite variable ranging from 0.0 percent to 11.2 percent per pen (Taylor et al., 1997).

   • 2008, Edward O. Price, Principles and Applications of Domestic Animal Behavior, →ISBN:

     Buller steers are often injured from persistent mounting by pen mates, or debilitated to the point that they must be removed from the group and housed separately. The added labor and pens required to manage buller steers cuts into profit margins. Losses are even greater when buller steers become debilitated.

2. (Caribbean, Jamaica, derogatory) A homosexual man.
   • 2004, Rhoda Reddock, Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities, →ISBN:

     My mother always mentioned these teachings when she saw a buller man or heard about someone thought to be a buller.

   • 2004, Wesley Eddison Aylesworth Crichlow, Buller Men and Batty Bwoys: Hidden Men in Toronto and Halifax Black Communities, →ISBN:

     This process of articulating my own story and asking other bullers to make public their stories is an attempt to assert and broaden the reality of Black male same-sex existence, which too many people for far too long have tried to erase.

   • 2012, G. Modele Dale Clarke, Up in Mahaica: Stories From the Market People, →ISBN:

     “Well, day say yuh must be ah buller man,” the pastor said flatly.

Anagrams

• rubell

French

Etymology

From bulle +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /by.le/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

buller

1. (intransitive) to bubble

Conjugation

Conjugation of buller (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	buller
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	bullant /by.lɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		bullé /by.le/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	bulle /byl/	bulles /byl/	bulle /byl/	bullons /by.lɔ̃/	bullez /by.le/	bullent /byl/
	imperfect	bullais /by.lɛ/	bullais /by.lɛ/	bullait /by.lɛ/	bullions /by.ljɔ̃/	bulliez /by.lje/	bullaient /by.lɛ/
	past historic2	bullai /by.le/	bullas /by.la/	bulla /by.la/	bullâmes /by.lam/	bullâtes /by.lat/	bullèrent /by.lɛʁ/
	future	bullerai /byl.ʁe/	bulleras /byl.ʁa/	bullera /byl.ʁa/	bullerons /byl.ʁɔ̃/	bullerez /byl.ʁe/	bulleront /byl.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	bullerais /byl.ʁɛ/	bullerais /byl.ʁɛ/	bullerait /byl.ʁɛ/	bullerions /by.lə.ʁjɔ̃/	bulleriez /by.lə.ʁje/	bulleraient /byl.ʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	bulle /byl/	bulles /byl/	bulle /byl/	bullions /by.ljɔ̃/	bulliez /by.lje/	bullent /byl/
	imperfect2	bullasse /by.las/	bullasses /by.las/	bullât /by.la/	bullassions /by.la.sjɔ̃/	bullassiez /by.la.sje/	bullassent /by.las/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	bulle /byl/	—	bullons /by.lɔ̃/	bullez /by.le/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Further reading

• “buller”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Verb

buller

1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of bullō

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish bulder. Arguably from Old Norse, from or related to Proto-Germanic *bellaną (“to roar”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-.

Deverbal from bullra.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

buller n

1. unpleasant noise (usually associated with mechanical sources such as engines and machinery rather than electric/electromechanical sources)
2. a loud rumble, as from thunder

   Synonym: muller

Declension

Declension of buller
	Uncountable
	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	buller	bullret	—	—
Genitive	bullers	bullrets	—	—

Derived terms

• med buller och bång

See also

• brus
• dån
• huller om buller

Further reading

• Pokorny, Julius (1959) chapter 372, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 372
• buller in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• buller in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• buller in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• bullra in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)