bullroar

English

Etymology

Compound of bull +‎ roar.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

bullroar (countable and uncountable, plural bullroars)

1. (countable) An extremely loud and vehement voice.
   • 1988, Ian Meredith Hughes, Black Moon, Jade Sea, London: Clifford Frost Publishing, page 84:

     They protested vehemently with strangled groans, fat belches and rattling bullroars, spattering everyone with lacy, foul-smelling spittle, their necks and legs flailing in all directions and contorting their bodies as they were forcibly thrown to the ground by tying up a foreleg and heaving them heavily sideways.

   • 1999, Marlene J[ohanna] Norst, Burnum Burnum: A Warrior for Peace, East Roseville, NSW: Kangaroo Press, →ISBN, page 33:

     Carmel remembers Harry's grandfather as having pure white hair and a bullroar of a voice.

2. (countable) Synonym of bullroarer (a type of musical instrument)
   • 2004, H. Sidky, Perspectives on Culture: A Critical Introduction to Theory in Cultural Anthropology, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, →ISBN, page 268, column 2:

     Australian aborigines symbolically depict totems on stones called churinga or on wood used as bullroars.

3. (uncountable) Euphemistic form of bullshit.

   Cut out the bullroar and tell it to me like it is.

   • 1962, Robert Newton Peck, The Happy Sadist, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., page 94:

     Let's flush this new fangled corporate image bullroar and get back to good old belly-to-counter selling.

   • 2019 March 6, Ty Burr, “Like its title character, 'Captain Marvel' gets the job done”, in The Boston Globe‎^[1], Boston, M.A.: Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-12-25:

     In fact, without in the least playing like an agenda-driven blockbuster, "Captain Marvel" posits that female superheroes don't have time for bullroar and might just be better at taking care of business.

   • 2022 June 15, “The Four Horsemen”, in God's Favorite Idiot, episode 7, spoken by Clark Thompson (Ben Falcone):

     You can even deny the apocalypse. But I'm not gonna let you bring Amily into your extraordinary brand of bullroar.

See also

• within a bull's roar

 

References

• “bull roar n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present