Learn English – Does “Bounce” have a negative sense when you want someone to leave

meaning-in-context

I hear sometimes that when someone want other people to leave, they say Bounce. And I recently heard that someone said "I'll bounce" when they wanted to leave (nobody asked them to).

So my question is: Bounce always has a negative sense or it depends on the context?

Best Answer

Bounce is only negative when it is used transitively on a person:

  • 1885 Milnor (Dakota) Teller 5 June 5/2 ― Tuller, Judge Hudson’s imported clerk of the court at Lisbon, is likely to be bounced, and Hugh Doherty appointed.
  • 1893 O. Thanet Stories Western Town 213 ― You don’t suppose it would be any use to offer Esther a cool hundred thousand to promise to bounce this young fellow?

When it is used intransitively, it is just fine:

  • 1851 Helps Comp. Solit. iv. (1874) 45 ― The market-gardener’s wife, little attended to, bounces out of the room.
  • 1883 Ld. Saltoun Scraps I. iii. 264 ― The innkeeper’s wife bounced into the room.

(Citations from the OED.)

The contemporary intransitive use of bounce as in leave, scram, beat it, vamoose, take off, skedaddle is also perfectly non-negative.

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