Also 6 boulge. [f. BULGE sb.; see the variants BILGE, BOUGE, BULCH vbs.]
† 1. trans. To stave in the bottom of a ship, cause her to spring a leak; = BILGE v. 1. Obs.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M., 281/1. In which fight … were three of the Genowaies ships both boulged and soonke.
1686. W. de Britaine, Hum. Prud., § 9. 46. Labouring to buoy up a sunk Ship of anothers, [he] bulged his own Vessel.
1782. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1846), VII. Add. iv. Fearing, from the great swell … it [the wreck] might bulge the ship.
1821. Byron, To Murray, 7 Feb. Falconer’s ship was bulged upon them.
b. transf.
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1341. It was not a fair fall, as only one shoulder had bulged the ground.
† 2. refl. and intr. Of a ship: To suffer fracture in the bilge; to strike (on or against) so as to damage the bilge. Obs.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 452 b. So doe they also in the same shyppe bulge themselves most of all.
1595. Sir A. Preston, in Hakluyt’s Voy., III. 579. The rest bulged themselves.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Scornf. Lady, III. i. Forc’d by a tyrant storm, our beaten bark Bulg’d under us.
1695. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), III. 508. The Henry … bulg’d upon a rock, and lost all her cargo.
1774. Goldsm., Hist. Greece, I. 275. Their vessels … bulged furiously one against the other.
1796–7. Coleridge, Poems (1862), 13. It bulged on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast.
1807. Robinson, Archæol. Græca, IV. xviii. 403. The ship received no damage by bulging against rocks.
b. transf.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., 348. If … Planetary Bodies should bulge and fall foul one upon the other.
II. Connected with BULGE sb. 2, 3, protuberance.
3. intr. To form a protuberance, to swell out; esp. in an irregular, clumsy or faulty manner; e.g., as a wall of which the surface projects beyond the top and bottom.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 157 (L.). Batter, The side, or part of the side of a Wall, or any Timber that bulges from its bottom or Foundation, is said to Batter.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1721), Add. 10. The thin crust of Salt upon the surface bulged up.
1787. G. White, Selborne, ii. 6. An oak … bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem.
1833. I. Taylor, Fanat., vi. 165. If the dyke of despotism had not bulged and gaped.
1868. Lockyer, Heavens (ed. 3), 211. The globe of Mars … bulges, like our Earth, at the equator.
4. trans. To make protuberant.
1865. Sir J. Herschel, in Intell. Observ., No. 46. 248. By bulging them upwards.
1866. Morning Star, 22 July. A purse bulged with Austrian florin notes.
