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BOSOM
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A close affectionate and protective acceptance
Example:
in the bosom of the family
Synonyms:
bosom; embrace
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
acceptance; acceptation; adoption; espousal (the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Cloth that covers the chest or breasts
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
cloth covering (a covering made of cloth)
Holonyms ("bosom" is a part of...):
garment (an article of clothing)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A person's breast or chest
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
breast; chest (the front of the trunk from the neck to the abdomen)
Derivation:
bosom (hold (someone) tightly in your arms, usually with fondness)
bosom (hide in one's bosom)
bosomy ((of a woman's body) having a large bosom and pleasing curves)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Either of two soft fleshy milk-secreting glandular organs on the chest of a woman
Synonyms:
boob; bosom; breast; knocker; tit; titty
Classified under:
Nouns denoting body parts
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
mamma; mammary gland (milk-secreting organ of female mammals)
Meronyms (parts of "bosom"):
lactiferous duct (ducts of the mammary gland that carry milk to the nipple)
areola; ring of color (small circular area such as that around the human nipple or an inflamed area around a pimple or insect bite)
Holonyms ("bosom" is a part of...):
adult female body; woman's body (the body of an adult woman)
Derivation:
bosomy ((of a woman's body) having a large bosom and pleasing curves)
Sense 5
Meaning:
The locus of feelings and intuitions
Example:
her story would melt your bosom
Synonyms:
bosom; heart
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
hunch; intuition; suspicion (an impression that something might be the case)
Sense 6
Meaning:
The chest considered as the place where secret thoughts are kept
Example:
his bosom was bursting with the secret
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("bosom" is a kind of...):
concealment; privacy; privateness; secrecy (the condition of being concealed or hidden)
Domain usage:
archaicism; archaism (the use of an archaic expression)
Derivation:
bosom (hide in one's bosom)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Hold (someone) tightly in your arms, usually with fondness
Example:
He hugged her close to him
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging
Hypernyms (to "bosom" is one way to...):
clasp (hold firmly and tightly)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "bosom"):
clinch (embrace amorously)
cuddle (hold (a person or thing) close, as for affection, comfort, or warmth)
interlock; lock (become engaged or intermeshed with one another)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Derivation:
bosom (a person's breast or chest)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Hide in one's bosom
Example:
She bosomed his letters
Classified under:
Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling
Hypernyms (to "bosom" is one way to...):
conceal; hide (prevent from being seen or discovered)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP
Derivation:
bosom (a person's breast or chest)
bosom (the chest considered as the place where secret thoughts are kept)
Context examples:
Poor Jo tried desperately to be good, but her bosom enemy was always ready to flame up and defeat her, and it took years of patient effort to subdue it.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still going like a sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
“With what intense desire she wants her home,” was continually on her tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not suppose any schoolboy's bosom to feel more keenly.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Rest assured of this, that if all else fail I have always a safeguard here—drawing a small silver-hilted poniard from her bosom—which sets me beyond the fear of these vile and blood-stained wretches.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One would fancy we were bosom friends!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He clutched it avariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold, and thrust it into his shirt bosom.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running and apologetic fire of comment.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
"Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne."
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Then suddenly we were on a broad bridge with a dark coffee-brown river flowing sulkily beneath it, and bluff-bowed barges drifting down upon its bosom.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
