rowel [rou-uh l] EXAMPLES|WORD ORIGIN noun a small wheel with radiating points, forming the extremity of a spur. Veterinary Medicine. a piece of leather or the like inserted beneath the skin of a horse or other animal to promote drainage of an infection. verb (used with object), row·eled, row·el·ing or (especially British) row·elled, row·el·ling. to prick or urge with a rowel. Veterinary Medicine. to insert a rowel in. Liberaldictionary.com
Origin of rowel 1350–1400; Middle English rowelle Middle French ruelle, Old French roel Late Latin rotella, equivalent to Latin rot(a) wheel + -ella -elle Related formsun·row·eled; especially British un·row·elled, adjective Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019 Related Words for roweling prod, tease, coerce, harass, hound, provoke, force, propel, move, sting, thrust, arouse, prompt, animate, whip, exhort, irritate, sound, encourage, trigger Examples from the Web for roweling Historical Examples of roweling
Roweling his horse, Pedro climbed the slope toward Mountain Rancheria.
Paul Bartlett
Roweling deep, he raced with Death to bring a woman’s solace to a dying man.
Davis Brinton
Far to the west a faint report was heard and Pete knew that Skinny was roweling the lathered sides of his straining horse.
Clarence E. Mulford
The old schooner scrunched her way past the Olenia, roweling the yacht’s glossy paint and smearing her with tar and slime.
Holman Day
Anger burned high in him, and like the bully he was he took it out of his good horse by roweling its sides savagely.
William Macleod Raine
British Dictionary definitions for roweling rowel noun a small spiked wheel attached to a spur vet science obsolete a piece of leather or other material inserted under the skin of a horse to act as a seton and allow drainage verb -els, -elling or -elled or US -els, -eling or -eled (tr) to goad (a horse) using a rowel vet science obsolete to insert a rowel in (the skin of a horse) to allow drainage Word Origin for rowel C14: from Old French roel a little wheel, from roe a wheel, from Latin rota Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for roweling rowel n.
“pointed wheel on a spur,” mid-14c., from Old French roelle, roel (Modern French rouelle), “small wheel” (see roulette).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper