[see BOUNCE v. (The first three senses appear nearly simultaneously, and their order here is purely provisional.)]
1. A heavy and usually noisy blow caused by something big; a sounding knock, thump.
a. 1529. Skelton, Ware the Hauke, 86. He gave her a bounce Full upon the gorge.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 88. With ramping bounce clapping neer to the seacoast Fierce the waters ruffle.
1629. Ford, Lover’s Mel., I. i. (1839), 2. Blustering Boreas … thumps a thunder bounce.
1761. Brit. Mag., II. 506. A noise from the next room, conveyed in distinct bounces against the wainscot.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. (1863), 247. His knock at the door was a bounce that threatened to bring the house about our ears.
† 2. The loud burst of noise produced by an explosion; the explosion itself. Obs. (See BOUNCE interj. in the same sense, occurring 1523.)
[1552. Huloet, Bounce, noyse, or thump.]
1595. Shaks., John, II. 462. He speakes plaine Cannon fire, and smoake, and bounce.
1702. De Foe, Reform. Manners, Concl. 44. These are the Squibs and Crackers of the Law, Which hiss and make a Bounce, and then withdraw.
1719. Halley, in Phil. Trans., XXX. 990. The rattling Noise like small-Arms, heard after the great Bounce on the Explosion over Tiverton.
1766. Cavendish, ibid., LVI. 149. With 7 parts of inflammable to 3 of common air, there was a very gentle bounce or rather puff.
3. A leap, a bound. On the bounce: in continual spasmodic movement.
1523. Skelton, Garl. Laurel, 1318. He brought out a rabyll Of coursers and rounsis With lepes and bounsis.
1570. Levins, Manip., 220. A Bounce, leape, saltus.
1729. Atterbury, Misc. Wks., V. 131. It will not be so much upon the bounce as formerly.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., IV. x. (1849), 242. The testy little governor … appears with one annoyance and the other to have been kept continually on the bounce.
1884. Chr. World, 10 July, 513/1. In each bounce or throw of the ball.
4. (from 2.) A loud or audacious boast; a boastful falsehood; abstr. impudent self-assertion, swagger.
1714. Steele, Lover (1723), 93. This is supposed to be only a Bounce.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, III. iv. (1734), 301–2. It was a wild Bounce of a Pythagorean, who defy’d any one, to [etc.].
1824. Galt, Rothelan, II. V. ix. 261. It is, I own, a brave bounce to aspire to the daughter of so proud an earl.
1829. De Quincey, Murder, Wks. IV. 2. The whole story is a bounce of his own.
1866. W. G. Ward, Ess. (1882), II. 107. Here is bounce and swagger with a vengeance.
b. colloq. A boastful, swaggering fellow.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Bounce, a person well or fashionably drest is said to be a rank bounce.
