bosom

noun

1. 1

   datedThe breast or chest of a human (or sometimes of another animal).

   Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.

   Mary felt annoyed at the girl; just because bras had become passé, did a girl with so pronounced a bosom have to cater to fashion? In this case practicality dictated a bra, and Mary stood at the desk feeling herself flushing with disapproval.

2. 2

   The seat of one's inner thoughts, feelings, etc.; one's secret feelings; desire.

   my poor dear duke[…], in consequence of the excitement created in his august bosom by her frantic violence and grief, had a fit in which I very nigh lost him.

   His uncle, a Cardinal, engages a Spanish youth of Moorish descent called Diego, an expert singer and player on the virginal,[…]to cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff, and cure him by the spell of his music.

3. 3

   The protected interior or inner part of something; the area enclosed as by an embrace.

   … Mr Toodle … was refreshing himself with tea in the bosom of his family.

   there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.

4. 4

   The part of a dress etc. covering the chest; a neckline.

   And he put his hand into his boſome: and when hee tooke it out, behold, his hand was leprous as ſnowe.

   She was always in a fearful hurry, and the lower the bosom was cut the more it was to be gathered she was wanted elsewhere.

5. 5

   A breast, one of a woman's breasts

   I dont [sic] know that her bosoms were fuller than usual.

   The prevailing look at Aintree was of a well-upholstered woman wearing an outfit about three sizes too small for her; trouser suits so tight you could not only tell if the lady had a coin in her pocket but see if it was heads or tails, and skimpy tops proclaiming proudly that bosoms are back—and this time it's personal.

   The baby was crammed against one of her bosoms. He was meant to be sucking milk out of it. The other bosom was hanging down, with a funny long red blob on the end.

6. 6

   Any thing or place resembling the breast; a supporting surface; an inner recess; the interior.

   I observed, indeed, that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.

   The appointed place was on the edge of a deep, rocky ravine, down in whose dark bosom brawled and foamed a little mountain torrent.

7. 7

   A depression round the eye of a millstone.

   The bosom of the mill-stone is a central depression, and the staff is adjustable to test the symmetry of the concavity.

adjective

1. 1

   In a very close relationship.

   bosom buddies

   Lieut. Creecy of the navy, who has been detailed to the aerial experiments at the fort, and who was a bosom companion of young Selfridge, was brokenhearted.

verb

1. 1

   To enclose or carry in the bosom; to keep with care; to take to heart; to cherish.

   Bosom up my counsel, You’ll find it wholesome.

2. 2

   To conceal; to hide from view; to embosom.

   To happy Convents bosom’d deep in Vines, Where slumber Abbots, purple as their Wines;

   Those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in the queen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book.

   Beyond were the pines, and a rugged road, flint-edged, full of dips and rises, turns and twists, hovering on edges, or bosoming itself in deep rock-strewn cuts.

3. 3

   To belly; to billow, swell or bulge.

   Just above the recess the cliff bosomed out with a full swell for some two or three feet, effectually preventing any one’s looking down into the nest from above […]

4. 4

   To belly; to cause to billow, swell or bulge.

   1855, The Scald [pseudonym of George Smellie], “Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay” in The Sea: Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay, and Other Poems, London: Hope & Co., p. 45, Thus one by one they mount, and spreading wide, The transverse wings extend on either side, And, lightly bosomed by the gentle gale, She seems a moving pyramid of ail.

Forms

plural

bosoms

past tense

bosomed

past participle

bosomed

present participle

bosoming

third person singular

bosoms