bull
noun
Bull — an old-fashioned term for a particularly absurd, glaring blunder
Definition
A serious and ludicrous blunder; "he made a bad bull of the assignment"
In depth
In this specific, somewhat dated sense, a bull names a serious and ludicrous blunder, an error so absurd or self-contradictory that it borders on comic. The usage is distinct from the common animal or the unrelated slang sense of nonsense, instead describing a particular kind of glaringly foolish mistake, often verbal or logical in nature.
Origin
The word's origin in this sense is debated, possibly related to an older association between the surname Bull and a class of absurd, self-contradictory statements once called 'Irish bulls' in eighteenth and nineteenth-century English, a now largely obsolete and somewhat dated linguistic category describing logically incongruous remarks.
Usage examples
"He made a bad bull of the assignment, submitting an analysis that contradicted its own central argument within the first paragraph."
"The minister's speech contained a memorable bull, accidentally praising the very policy he had spent the entire address criticizing."
"Old grammar textbooks once used the term bull to describe a particular kind of self-contradictory verbal blunder."
How to use it
This sense of bull is quite dated and rarely encountered in contemporary English, more likely to cause confusion than clarity in modern writing; 'howler' or 'blunder' will generally communicate the same meaning more reliably to a contemporary reader.
Related concepts
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