Bail
Etymology
From Old French “bail” (custody, guardianship), from “baillier” (to control, hand over, or deliver), from Latin “bajulare” (to bear a burden). The same root gives us “bailiff” and “bailiwick.” Bail is, at root, the handing over of a person into someone’s keeping on the strength of a pledge. From French "baille," a bucket — a separate word from the legal bail (from "bailler," to hand over).
noun · /BAYL/
Money or a pledge that buys a defendant’s release from custody before trial, forfeited if they fail to return.
What it names
The price of freedom while a case is pending — reach for it to name the deposit that lets an unconvicted person go home, and to see why wealth can decide who waits behind bars.
Example
The judge set bail at fifty thousand dollars, an amount the family could only meet through a bail bondsman.
Related idea
Don’t confuse the pretrial and post-trial versions: bail releases someone before trial while presumed innocent, whereas parole releases someone after conviction who has served part of a sentence.
verb · /BAYL/
To rescue a person or organization from difficulty, especially financially — or, informally, to abandon something abruptly.
What it names
From scooping water out of a sinking boat, it names both the rescue ('a government bailout') and the escape ('he bailed on the plan').
Example
The bank was deemed too big to fail, so the government bailed it out.
Related idea
A bailout rescues the failing — restoring solvency to a sinking firm — while 'to bail' can also mean the opposite: to abandon ship abruptly.
verb · /BAYL/
To scoop water out of a boat to keep it from sinking.
What it names
The frantic act of removing water faster than it comes in — the literal source of ‘bailing out’ of a crisis.
Example
We bailed with buckets while the storm swamped the deck.
Related idea
The financial ‘bail out’ and the parachuting ‘bail out’ both borrow this image of escaping by emptying or leaping clear.