What does bulled mean?
"Bulled" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "bull," a forceful word that carries the energy of its animal namesake. Its most familiar use describes pushing through something with sheer determination or brute strength, as when someone "bulled his way through a crowd." A second, more specialized sense belongs to the world of finance, where traders speak of a market or commodity being "bulled" upward—that is, driven higher by confident, optimistic buyers. The word is informal in tone and more common in American speech than British. It evokes connotations of stubbornness, momentum, and raw power rather than elegance, which makes it vivid in narrative writing about determined or aggressive action. Related forms include the noun "bull," the adjective "bullish," and compounds such as "bulldoze." For writers seeking a muscular alternative to plain verbs like "pushed" or "forced," "bulled" offers a punchy, memorable choice rooted in centuries of English imagery.
Past tense and past participle of "bull": pushed forcefully; made one's way by brute strength.
"They bulled the heavy crate into place despite its weight."
Chiefly informal American usage.
Past tense and past participle of "bull": drove up the price of a security or commodity through bullish trading.
"Investors bulled gold higher on inflation fears."
Trading and financial jargon.
When traders talk about a stock being "bulled" higher, they're borrowing the image of a charging bull—one of Wall Street's oldest metaphors.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bulled
The word traces back to Middle English "bullen," from Old English "bula" or "bull," the male bovine, with Germanic cognates including Old Norse "bolli" and related forms across the Germanic family. The verb arose figuratively from the animal's habit of butting and shoving with its head, giving English expressions of forceful pushing from at least the early modern period. The financial sense developed alongside "bull" as a term for an investor who expects rising prices—a usage whose precise origin is debated, though it was established by the eighteenth century. Distant relatives sharing the same Proto-Indo-European root for swelling and rounding include "boulevard" (via French boule) and "bucolic" (via Greek bous, ox).
Related word forms
How bulled is actually used
Informal and somewhat colloquial. The physical sense is common in American English; the financial sense appears mainly in trading jargon.
Easily confused with bulled
"Full" describes being completely filled, whereas "bulled" is the past tense of bulling—pushing forcibly or driving prices upward.
"Bullied" means subjected to intimidation by a bully, while "bulled" means physically pushed or driven forward like a bull.