In Optimality Theory, harmonic bounding occurs when one input-output mapping receives a set of constraint violations that is a proper subset of the set received by another mapping, causing the former to be excluded despite incurring fewer violations.

During the post-war cleanup, engineers discovered several bounding mines buried beneath the playground.

The patrol disarmed a bounding mine that had been buried along the roadside.

A bounded function cannot grow without limit, so its values stay within some fixed constant across its domain.

The farmer rushed the egg-bound hen to the vet when she couldn't pass the egg.

She donated a stack of paper-bound novels to the community library.

The early-bound interfaces reduced runtime overhead, but they made the system harder to extend.

The late-bound method threw a runtime error when the interface changed.

In the OT tableau, candidate A harmonically bound candidate B, so the grammar selected A.

The muscle-bound bodybuilder struggled to fit into the old suit he had worn in college.