n.
'hold (of a ship)'
(Modern English bulk)Always derived formally from ON, cp. OIcel bulki 'cargo that is secured (amidships)' (but compare *bulk). The ulterior etymology is obscure, but it is usual to relate it to one or both of OIcel bolr 'tree trunk; body (without a head), torso, trunk' (de Vries) and OIcel balkr 'balk, partition', bjalki '(wooden) beam, balk' (Mag.). This is the only citation in MED in the sense 'hold (of a ship)' as opposed to the enclosure of a building (OED adds one dubious further instance in ME from the 15c. London poet Henry Lovelich), and semantic influence from ME bouk (< OE būc ‘a vessel of some sort, earthen pot, flask, bottle etc.; trunk of the body, the bodily frame; specifically: the stomach, belly’) (as OED, MED) also seems plausible here.
PGmc Ancestor
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
bulki 'cargo that is secured (amidships)'
(ONP bulki (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Icel búlki, Norw bulk, bolk, Dan bulk, Sw bulk
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
B1
ME bulk is first attested in an AFr text (a1350 Ipswich Domesday(1) (Add 25012)), and MED then has a range of late 14c. and 15c. citations, though this sense is uncommon (see etymological discussion).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Pat 292