What does bolded mean?
"Bolded" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "bold," which means to display text in a heavier, darker typeface in order to make it stand out. The usage is a product of the computer era: once word processors let anyone change typefaces with a keystroke, "bold" shifted from being purely an adjective describing heavy lettering to a verb people actually perform on text. Today, saying that someone "bolded the important dates" is entirely ordinary in emails, reports, and online writing. It belongs mostly to informal and professional registers; formal publishing tends to prefer phrases like "set in boldface." Because it is easily confused with "emboldened" — which means to give someone courage — writers should reserve "bolded" strictly for typographic emphasis. Its rise is a neat example of how technology creates new verbs from old adjectives.
verb (past participle)"Bolded" is the past form of the verb "bold," meaning to set text in a bold typeface for emphasis. It is chiefly a modern usage from word processing and digital publishing.
- To render text in a bold typeface (digital/typographic sense)
"She bolded the key deadlines so they would stand out in the report."
"The instructions bolded every step that required a signature."
"Key terms are bolded throughout the textbook to help students skim efficiently."
Before computers, you couldn't 'bold' text at all — editors simply asked the typesetter to do it, so the everyday verb 'to bold' is barely a few decades old.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bolded
The word derives from "bold," an adjective from Old English "bald" or "beald," meaning courageous or daring, of Germanic origin. The verb "to bold" — and hence its inflected form "bolded" — arose only with the advent of digital typography in the late twentieth century, when software made changing type weight an action users performed directly. Its Germanic root also gives us cognates such as German "kühn" (bold) and Dutch "boud," though these share ancestry rather than direct descent.
Related word forms
How bolded is actually used
"Bolded" is informal-to-neutral register, standard in workplace and online writing but less common in formal print style guides, which often prefer "set in bold type" or "in boldface." It functions as the past tense and past participle of the verb "bold."
Easily confused with bolded
"Emboldened" describes giving someone courage or confidence, while "bolded" refers only to making text appear in bold typeface.