bolt

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A bar made of wood or metal that slides into a socket and is used to fasten doors and gates.
• noun A metal bar or rod in the mechanism of a lock that is thrown or withdrawn by turning the key.
• noun A fastener consisting of a threaded pin or rod with a head at one end, designed to be inserted through holes in assembled parts and secured by a mated nut that is tightened by applying torque.
• noun A sliding metal bar that positions the cartridge in breechloading rifles, closes the breech, and ejects the spent cartridge.
• noun A similar device in any breech mechanism.
• noun A short, heavy arrow with a thick head, used especially with a crossbow.
• noun A flash of lightning; a thunderbolt.
• noun A sudden or unexpected event.
• noun A sudden movement toward or away.
• noun A large roll of cloth of a definite length, especially as it comes from the loom.
• intransitive verb To secure or lock with or as if with a bolt.
• intransitive verb To arrange or roll (lengths of cloth, for example) on or in a bolt.
• intransitive verb To eat (food) hurriedly and with little chewing; gulp.
• intransitive verb To desert or withdraw support from (a political party).
• intransitive verb To utter impulsively; blurt.
• intransitive verb Archaic To shoot or discharge (a missile, such as an arrow).
• intransitive verb To move or spring suddenly.
• intransitive verb To start suddenly and run away.
• intransitive verb To break away from an affiliation, as from a political party.
• intransitive verb Botany To flower or produce seeds prematurely or develop a flowering stem from a rosette.
• idiom (bolt from the blue) A sudden, shocking surprise or turn of events.
• idiom (bolt upright) In a rigidly vertical position.
• transitive verb To pass (flour, for example) through a sieve.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To go off like a bolt or arrow; shoot forth suddenly; spring out with speed and suddenness: commonly followed by out: as, to bolt out of the house.
• To spring aside or away suddenly; start and run off; make a bolt.
• In politics, to withdraw from a nominating convention as a means of showing disapproval of its acts; hence, to cease to act in full accord with one's party; refuse to support a measure or candidate adopted by a majority of one's colleagues or party associates.
• To fall suddenly, like a thunderbolt.
• To run to seed prematurely, as early-sown root-crops (turnips, etc.), without the usual thickening of the root, or after it.
• To send off like a bolt or arrow; shoot; discharge.
• To start or spring (game); cause to bolt up or out, as hares, rabbits, and the like.
• To expel; drive out suddenly.
• To blurt out; ejaculate or utter hastily.
• To swallow hurriedly or without chewing: as, to bolt one's food.
• [After I., 3.] In politics, to break away from and refuse to support (the candidate, the ticket, or the platform presented by or in the name of the party to which one has hitherto adhered); leave or abandon: as, to bolt the presidential candidate.
• To fasten or secure with a bolt or an iron pin, as a door, a plank, fetters, or anything else.
• To fasten as with bolts; shackle; restrain.
• noun An arrow; especially, in archery, the arrow of a crossbow, which was short and thick as compared with a shaft.
• noun A thunderbolt; a stream of lightning: so named from its apparently darting like a bolt.
• noun An elongated bullet for a rifled cannon.
• noun A cylindrical jet, as of water or molten glass.
• noun A metallic pin or rod, used to hold objects together. It generally has screwthreads cut at one end, and sometimes at both, to receive a nut.
• noun A movable bar for fastening a door, gate, window-sash, or the like; specifically, that portion of a lock which is protruded from or drawn back within the case by the action of the key, and makes a fastening by being shot into a socket or keeper.
• noun An iron to fasten the legs of a prisoner; a shackle.
• noun In firearms: In a needle-gun, the sliding piece that thrusts the cartridge forward into the chamber and carries the firing-pin.
• noun In a snap-gun, the part that holds the barrel to the breech-mechanism.
• noun A roll or definite length of silk, canvas, tape, or other textile fabric, and also of wall-paper, as it comes from the maker ready for sale or use.
• noun A bundle. Of straw, a quantity loosely tied up. Also bolting or bolton.
• noun Of osier rods, a quantity bound up for market, 3½ feet around the lower band.
• noun Of reeds, one of 3 feet in circumference.