different between bully vs punish

English

Etymology

From 1530, as a term of endearment, probably a diminutive ( +? -y) of Dutch boel (“lover; brother”), from Middle Dutch boel, boele (“brother; lover”), from Old Dutch *buolo, from Proto-Germanic *b?lô (compare Middle Low German bôle (“brother”), Middle High German buole (“brother; close relative; close relation”) (whence German Buhle (“lover”)), Old English B?la, B?lla (personal name), diminutive of expressive *b?- (“brother, father”). Compare also Latvian b?linš (“brother”). More at boy.

The term acquired negative senses during the 17th century; first ‘noisy, blustering fellow’ then ‘a person who is cruel to others’. Possibly influenced by bull (“male cattle”) or via the ‘prostitute's minder’ sense. The positive senses are dated, but survive in phrases such as bully pulpit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?li/
• Rhymes: -?li

Noun

bully (countable and uncountable, plural bullies)

1. A person who is intentionally physically or emotionally cruel to others, especially to those who are weaker or have less power or privilege. [from late 17th c.]

2. A noisy, blustering, tyrannical person, more insolent than courageous; one who is threatening and quarrelsome.
3. A hired thug.
   • 1849, John McLean, Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory, pp. 42-3:

     Mr. Fisher returned from town... he had learnt that our opponents intended to shift the scene of operations to the Chats... We understood that they had hired two bullies for the purpose of deciding the matter par voie de fait. Mr Fisher hired two of the same description, who were supposed to be more than a match for the opposition party.

   Synonyms: henchman, thug

4. A sex worker’s minder.

   Synonyms: pimp; see also Thesaurus:pimp

   • 2009, Dan Cruikshank, Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, p. 473:

     The Proclamation Society and the Society for the Suppression of Vice were more concerned with obscene literature […] than with hands-on street battles with prostitutes and their bullies […].

5. (uncountable) Bully beef.
6. (obsolete) A brisk, dashing fellow.
7. The small scrum in the Eton College field game.
8. Various small freshwater or brackishwater fish of the family Eleotridae; sleeper goby.
9. (obsolete or dialectal, Ireland and Northern England) An (eldest) brother; a fellow workman; comrade
10. (dialectal) A companion; mate (male or female).

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:friend

11. (obsolete) A darling, sweetheart (male or female).

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sweetheart
12. (field hockey) A standoff between two players from the opposing teams, who repeatedly hit each other's hockey sticks and then attempt to acquire the ball, as a method of resuming the game in certain circumstances. Also called bully-off.
13. (mining) A miner's hammer.

Translations

Verb

bully (third-person singular simple present bullies, present participle bullying, simple past and past participle bullied)

1. (transitive) To intimidate (someone) as a bully.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:intimidate

2. (transitive) To act aggressively towards.

   Synonyms: push around, ride roughshod over

Translations

Adjective

bully (comparative bullier, superlative bulliest)

1. (US, slang) Very good.

   Synonyms: excellent; see also Thesaurus:excellent

   • 1916, The Independent (volumes 35-36, page 6)

     She is a bully woman, not only a good mother, but a wonderful in-law

2. (slang, obsolete) Jovial and blustering.

   Synonym: dashing

   • 1597, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor Act II, scene iii:

Derived terms

• bully boy
• bully pulpit

Translations

Interjection

bully

1. (often followed by for) Well done!

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:well done

Translations

Further reading

• bully on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English bully, itself a derivation of Dutch boel (“lover; brother”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bu.li/
• Hyphenation: bul?ly

Noun

bully m (plural bully's)

1. (field hockey) bully (way of resuming the game with a standoff between two opposing players who repeatedly hit each other's sticks, then try to gain possession of the ball)

Spanish

Noun

bully m (plural bullys or bullies or bully)

1. bully

English

Alternative forms

• punishe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English punischen, from Anglo-Norman, Old French puniss-, stem of some of the conjugated forms of punir, from Latin puni? (“to inflict punishment upon”), from poena (“punishment, penalty”); see pain.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?n??/
• Hyphenation: pun?ish

Verb

punish (third-person singular simple present punishes, present participle punishing, simple past and past participle punished)

1. (transitive) To cause to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action.
   • 1818, William Cobbett, The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, page 255

     It was not from the want of proper laws that dangerous principles had been disseminated, and had assumed a threatening aspect, but because those laws had not been employed by the executive power to remedy the evil, and to punish the offenders.

   • 2007, Matthew Weait, Intimacy and Responsibility: The Criminalisation of HIV Transmission, Routledge (?ISBN), page 80

     The law needs to punish this behaviour as a deterrent to others.

   • 2017, Joyce Carol Oates, Double Delight, Open Road Media (?ISBN)

     His mother had punished him when he'd deserved it. She'd loved him, he was “all she had,” but she'd punished him, too.

   Synonym: castigate

2. (transitive, figuratively) To treat harshly and unfairly.
   • 1994, Valerie Polakow, Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America, University of Chicago Press (?ISBN), page 68

     But each effort that Anna makes —and she has attempted many— meets with obstacles from a welfare bureaucracy that punishes single mothers for initiative and partial economic self-sufficiency.

   • 2008, Seth Benardete, The Bow and the Lyre: A Platonic Reading of the Odyssey, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (?ISBN), page 5

     Homer, moreover, gives the impression that the Sun punished Odysseus's men; but we are later told that the Sun cannot punish individual men […]

   • 2009, Gordon Wright, Learning to Ride, Hunt, and Show, Skyhorse Publishing Inc. (?ISBN), page 44

     The rider who comes back on his horse in mid-air over a fence is punishing his horse severely.

   Synonym: mistreat

3. (transitive, colloquial) To handle or beat severely; to maul.
4. (transitive, colloquial) To consume a large quantity of.
   • 1970, Doc Greene, The Memory Collector (page 49)

     A few moments later, we were all sitting around the veranda of the hunters' dining hall, punishing the gin, as usual.

Derived terms

• punishable
• punisher (noun)
• punishing
• punishment (noun)
• telish, telishment

Related terms

• pain

Translations

Further reading

• punish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• punish in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• push in, push-in, pushin', unship