Also 7 bouldge, buldge. [ME. bulge, a. OF. boulge (also bouge), or ad. L. bulga leathern knapsack, bag, of Gaulish origin. Sense 2, in which there is a variant BULCH, may have been influenced by BOTCH sb.1, BOUCH sb.; sense 3 seems to be a recent formation from the verb. Sense 4 = BILGE, still belongs to the Fr. bouge, but the history of its introduction into English is not known.]
† 1. A wallet or bag, esp. one made of hide; a skin-bottle, a pouch, a purse; = BOUGE sb.1 1. Obs.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 35. Þe bitte þat beoreð forð as a water bulge.
1623. Favine, Theat. Hon., III. xiii. 523. The Crownes Reuennues … wherewith she would fill her owne Bouldges.
† 2. A hump. Cf. BULCH, BOTCH, BOUCH. Obs.
c. 1400. Ywaine & Gaw., 260. A ful grete bulge opon his bak.
3. A bulging, an irregularly rounded protuberance.
1741. Monro, Anatomy, 131. A large Tuberosity, or Bulge of the Bone appears.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., xxix. 396. They have the characteristic bulge of the carbonate-of-lime stalactite.
1861. Wright, Ess. Archæol., I. iv. 50. A bulge in the wall.
1879. Le Conte, Elem. Geol., 240. A mountain-chain consists of a great plateau or bulge of the earth’s surface.
4. The bottom of a ship’s hull. (Now generally superseded by BILGE.)
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 135. Shippes have beene put in danger … by a hole made in the bulge.
1689. Lond. Gaz., No. 2168/4. The Turkey Merchant was … driven ashore, where she stav’d in her Buldge.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 101. Bulge or Bilge, that part of the ship which she bears on most when not afloat.
5. Bulge-water, -ways = BILGE-WATER, -WAYS.
1735. Desaguliers, in Phil. Trans., XXXIX. 48. The Stench and foul Air from the Surface of the Bulge-Water.
1777. W. Wright, ibid., LXVII. 508. By some called the bulge-water tree.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 116. The heel … is cleated on the bulgeways.
