bulvan

bulvan (plural bulvans)

1. (slang) A brute.
   • 1966, Jay Neugeboren, Big Man, page 56:

     Johnson there is old, but he is built like a bulvan! Under the boards, who would fight with him?

   • 2010, Lord of Misrule:

     It wasn't too late to get away, he could twist clear of the door or fall down in the gutter where he was, even a bulvan like Biggy—it was Biggy he saw over his shoulder—wouldn't shoot him in the street, not in Carbonport.

bulvan m (plural bulvani)

1. alternative form of bălvan

• Paliga, Sorin (2024) An Etymological Dictionary of the Romanian Language, New York: Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 205

Borrowed from the Baltic languages. Compare with Latvian bulvāns (“decoy”) and Russian болван (bolvan, “dummy”).

bulvan c

1. (law) front, someone acting on behalf of someone else
2. decoy

• bulvan in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• bulvan in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• bulvan in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• bulvan in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)