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bouncer

nounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈbaʊn.sə//
  • United States//ˈboʊn.sɚ//

A person or thing that bounces something, such as a ball.

noun

  1. 1

    A person or thing that bounces something, such as a ball.

  2. 2

    informalA member of security personnel employed by bars, nightclubs, etc. to decide who can enter, maintain order, and deal with patrons who cause trouble.

    At 199 centimetres and a hundred kilos going up, he was scary big and he found work as a bouncer and enforcer[.]

  3. 3

    A short-pitched ball that bounces up towards, or above the height of the batsman’s head.

    ‘You try to hit the bouncer that you should duck under. Your bat misses it completely. The ball strikes your temple, whack!’

  4. 4

    An account or server (as with IRC and FTP) that invisibly redirects requests to another, used for anonymity or vanity.

  5. 5

    datedOne who bounces; a large, heavy person who makes much noise in moving.

    "Why, I'll tell you, Mr. Simple; he's a good tempered, kind fellow enough, but—" / "But what?" / "Such a bouncer!!" / "How do you mean? He's not a very stout man." / "Bless you, Mr. Simple, why don't you understand English. I mean that he's the greatest liar that ever walked a deck.[…]"

  6. 6

    archaicA boaster; a bully.

  7. 7

    Something big; a good stout example of the kind.

    The stone must be a bouncer.

  8. 8

    archaicA bold lie.

    "… when he wants to accomplish his purpose, he does not hesitate to invent—I am not quite sure of the word, but I think it is “bouncers.”

  9. 9

    archaicA liar.

    "Why, I'll tell you, Mr. Simple; he's a good tempered, kind fellow enough, but—" / "But what?" / "Such a bouncer!!" / "How do you mean? He's not a very stout man." / "Bless you, Mr. Simple, why don't you understand English. I mean that he's the greatest liar that ever walked a deck.[…]"

  10. 10

    A bouncy castle.

  11. 11

    A kind of seat mounted in a framework in which a baby can bounce up and down.

    He shook his head and took up the child—Dilly kicked out her feet in tiny electric jolts to the full stretch of the Babygro.[…]He put the child in the bouncer again.

  12. 12

    Variant of shop-bouncerobsoleteShort for shop-bouncer

    Noting a shop where goods are piled on the counter, or within reach, a man goes in called a bouncer, and generally asks to look at some handkerchiefs, selecting a time when there is only one shopman in the way, breakfast-time for instance; whilst this is going on, a well-dressed youth comes in with a blue bag in his hand, asking for shoe-ties, or some trifling article. Now the work begins; […]

Etymology

Etymology tree English bounce Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English bouncer From bounce + -er.

Forms

plural
bouncers
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).