bail
verb/beɪl/
/beɪl/
Verb Forms
Phrasal Verbs| present simple I / you / we / they bail | /beɪl/ /beɪl/ |
| he / she / it bails | /beɪlz/ /beɪlz/ |
| past simple bailed | /beɪld/ /beɪld/ |
| past participle bailed | /beɪld/ /beɪld/ |
| -ing form bailing | /ˈbeɪlɪŋ/ /ˈbeɪlɪŋ/ |
- (British English also bale)[transitive, usually passive] to release somebody on bail
- be bailed to do something He was bailed to appear in court on 15 March.
- be bailed He was bailed on a minor drugs charge.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- [intransitive] (North American English, informal) to leave a place, especially quickly
- Sorry, I really have to bail.
- [transitive] bail somebody (up) (Australian English, New Zealand English, informal) to approach somebody and talk to them, often when they do not want this
Word Originverb Middle English: from Old French, literally ‘custody, jurisdiction’, from bailler ‘take charge of’, from Latin bajulare ‘bear a burden’. bail out. early 17th cent.: from obsolete bail ‘bucket’, from French baille, based on Latin bajulus ‘carrier’.
Check pronunciation:
bail