bowl

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to engage in the sport of bowling

   My parents like to bowl on Friday nights.

2. 2
   verb

   to hurl a cricket ball from one end of the pitch towards the batsman at the other end

   I bowl very well.

3. 3
   verb

   to roll a ball

   I bowl every Thursday in a local club.

4. 4
   noun

   As much as is held by a bowl.

   You can’t have any more soup – you’ve had three bowls already.

5. 5
   noun

   A dish comprising a mix of different foods, not all of which need be cooked, served in a bowl.

   This restaurant offers a number of different bowls.

6. 6
   noun

   The round hollow part of anything.

   Direct the cleaning fluid around the toilet bowl and under the rim.

7. 7
   verb

   To roll or throw (a ball) in the correct manner in cricket and similar games and sports.

   Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, / And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven.

8. 8
   verb

   To roll or carry smoothly on, or as on, wheels.

   We were bowled rapidly along the road.

Etymology

From Middle English bolle, from Old English bolla, bolle (“bowl, cup, pot, beaker, measure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bollā, from Proto-Germanic *bullǭ (“ball, round vessel, bowl”). Cognate with North Frisian bol (“bun, bread roll”), Middle Low German bolle, bole (“round object”), Dutch bol (“ball, sphere, scoop, dot”), German Bolle (“bulb”), Danish bolle (“bowl, bread roll”), Icelandic bolli (“cup”). Doublet of boule and pulla.