bowl

bowl 1[bohl] ExamplesWord Origin noun

1. a rather deep, round dish or basin, used chiefly for holding liquids, food, etc.
2. the contents of a bowl: a bowl of tomato soup.
3. a rounded, cuplike, hollow part: the bowl of a pipe.
4. a large drinking cup.
5. festive drinking; conviviality.
6. any bowl-shaped depression or formation.
7. an edifice with tiers of seats forming sides like those of a bowl, having the arena at the bottom; stadium.
8. Also called bowl game. a football game played after the regular season by teams selected by the sponsors of the game, usually as representing the best from a region of the country: the Rose Bowl.
9. Typography. a curved or semicircular line of a character, as of a, d, b, etc.

verb (used with object)

10. to give (a floor) a gentle inclination on all sides toward some area, as a stage or platform.

Origin of bowl 1 before 950; Middle English bolle, Old English bolla; cognate with Old Norse bolli. See boll Related formsbowl·like, adjective bowl 2[bohl] noun

1. one of the balls, having little or no bias, used in playing ninepins or tenpins.
2. one of the biased or weighted balls used in lawn bowling.
3. bowls, (used with a singular verb) lawn bowling.
4. a delivery of the ball in bowling or lawn bowling.
5. (formerly) a rotating cylindrical part in a machine, as one to reduce friction.

verb (used without object)

6. to play at bowling or bowls; participate in or have a game or games of bowling.
7. to roll a bowl or ball.
8. to move along smoothly and rapidly.
9. Cricket. to deliver the ball to be played by the batsman.

verb (used with object)

10. to roll or trundle, as a ball or hoop.
11. to attain by bowling: He bowls a good game. She usually bowls a 120 game, but today she bowled 180.
12. to knock or strike, as by the ball in bowling (usually followed by over or down).
13. to carry or convey, as in a wheeled vehicle.
14. Cricket. to eliminate (a batsman) by bowling (usually followed by out): He was bowled for a duck. He was bowled out for a duck.

Verb Phrases

15. bowl over, to surprise greatly: We were bowled over by the news.

Origin of bowl 2 1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Middle French Latin bulla bubble, knob; cf. boil1, bola lawn bowling noun

1. a game played with wooden balls on a level, closely mowed green having a slight bias, the object being to roll one’s ball as near as possible to a smaller white ball at the other end of the green.Also called bowls, bowling on the green.Compare bowl2(def 2), bowling green, jack1(def 7), rink(def 5).

Origin of lawn bowling First recorded in 1925–30 Related Words for bowls dish, pot, basin, urn, crock, casserole, vessel, boat, tureen, porringer, saucer, whirl, rotate, fling, hurl, pitch, revolve, spin, throw, trundle Examples from the Web for bowls Contemporary Examples of bowls

Two bowls were set before the infant—one containing gold and jewels, the other hot coals.

Jon Stewart and ‘Meet The Press’ Would Have Been One Unhappy Marriage

Lloyd Grove

October 9, 2014

All that grows now is a beautiful double jasmine of which I have bowls full every day, and zinnias, ugly and useful.

Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq

Clive Irving

June 17, 2014

“In 28 days, I visited 21 different cities and ate 55 bowls of ramen,” he says.

Ramen Burger’s Inventor Talks About the Food Craze Eclipsing the Cronut

Marlow Stern

August 9, 2013

There is a steady flow of bowls of warm water, soapy and clear, delivered by a stream of helpers.

Inside a Home Funeral

Melissa Roberts Weidman

February 5, 2013

League owners awarded the 2004 and 2006 bowls to Houston and Detroit because taxpayers funded new stadiums in those cities.

Why the NFL Has Awarded Super Bowl 2014 to Cold-Weather East Rutherford

Evan Weiner

February 5, 2013

Historical Examples of bowls

There are a hundred and three pieces—plates, platters, cups, bowls.

Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae

Jennie Hall

Every one in the city had jugs and bowls made of wrought gold.

Introductory American History

Henry Eldridge Bourne

The table furnished with bowls, bottles, glasses, and cards.

The Group

Mercy Warren

Bowls and beer, and cards and betting—it’s ter’ble, ma’m, ter’ble.

Capt’n Davy’s Honeymoon

Hall Caine

He passed between the men, leaving his bowls besides them on the floor.

The New Land

Elma Ehrlich Levinger

British Dictionary definitions for bowls bowls noun (functioning as singular)

1. 1. a game played on a bowling green in which a small bowl (the jack) is pitched from a mark and two opponents or opposing teams take turns to roll biased wooden bowls towards it, the object being to finish as near the jack as possible
   2. (as modifier)a bowls tournament
2. skittles or tenpin bowling

bowl 1 noun

1. a round container open at the top, used for holding liquid, keeping fruit, serving food, etc
2. Also: bowlful the amount a bowl will hold
3. the rounded or hollow part of an object, esp of a spoon or tobacco pipe
4. any container shaped like a bowl, such as a sink or lavatory
5. mainly US a bowl-shaped building or other structure, such as a football stadium or amphitheatre
6. a bowl-shaped depression of the land surfaceSee also dust bowl
7. literary
   1. a drinking cup
   2. intoxicating drink

Word Origin for bowl Old English bolla; related to Old Norse bolli, Old Saxon bollo bowl 2 noun

1. a wooden ball used in the game of bowls, having flattened sides, one side usually being flatter than the other in order to make it run on a curved course
2. a large heavy ball with holes for gripping with the fingers and thumb, used in tenpin bowling

verb

3. to roll smoothly or cause to roll smoothly, esp by throwing underarm along the ground
4. (intr usually foll by along) to move easily and rapidly, as in a car
5. cricket
   1. to send (a ball) down the pitch from one’s hand towards the batsman, keeping the arm straight while doing so
   2. Also: bowl outto dismiss (a batsman) by delivering a ball that breaks his wicket
6. (intr) to play bowls or tenpin bowling
7. (tr) (in tenpin bowling) to score (a specified amount)he bowled 120

See also bowl over, bowls Word Origin for bowl C15: from French boule, ultimately from Latin bulla bubble Word Origin and History for bowls n.

game played with balls, mid-15c. (implied in bowlyn), from gerund of bowl “wooden ball” (early 15c.), from Old French bole (13c., Modern French boule) “ball,” ultimately from Latin bulla “bubble, knob, round thing” (see bull (n.2)).

Noon apprentice … [shall] play … at the Tenys, Closshe, Dise, Cardes, Bowles nor any other unlawfull game. [Act 11, Henry VII, 1495] bowl n.

Old English bolla “pot, cup, bowl,” from Proto-Germanic *bul- “a round vessel” (cf. Old Norse bolle, Old High German bolla), from PIE *bhl-, from root *bhel- (2) “to blow, inflate, swell” (see bole).

bowl v.

“to roll a ball on the ground,” typically as part of a game or contest, mid-15c., from bowl “wooden ball” (see bowls). Specifically of cricket from 1755; cricket use is source of late 19c. expressions bowl over, etc. Related: Bowled; bowling.