bowl

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bəʊl/, [bɒʊɫ]
• (New Zealand, General Australian) IPA^(key): /bɐʉl/, [bɒʊɫ]
• (US) IPA^(key): /boʊl/, [boɫ]
• Rhymes: -əʊl

• Audio (US)

  (file)

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.

bowl (plural bowls)

1. A roughly hemispherical container used to hold, mix or present food, such as salad, fruit or soup, or other items.
2. As much as is held by a bowl.

   Synonym: bowlful

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

3. (cooking) 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.

   poke bowl

   • 2021 October 23, Jane Black, “The Amazon of Quinoa Bowls”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Fresh ingredients are more expensive than highly processed ones and the result is grain bowls galore for those who can spend $10 or more per meal, and fast food full of salt, fat and sugar for everyone else.

4. A haircut in which straight hair is cut at an even height around the edges, forming a bowl shape.

   Synonyms: bowl cut, pudding bowl

5. The round hollow part of anything.

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

   1. The part of a spoon that holds content, as opposed to the handle.
   2. Part of a pipe, bong, or other smoking implement that holds the material to be burned.

      Let's smoke a bowl!

      • 1882, Edwin Atlee Barber, Catalogue of the Collection of Tobacco Pipes Deposited by Edwin A. Barber, page 11:

        195. Old German Pipe-Bowl ; carved wood ; design in front of bowl – the letters P K K surrounded by a wreath ; lid wanting. Switzerland.

      • 2010, Mark Arax, West of the West‎, page 221:

        Purple smoke is no joke. Especially when it is real purple. The smell, taste, and high is easily one of the best in the world. One bowl of some purple Kush, and I'm done for a couple of hours.

   3. (typography) A rounded portion of a glyph that encloses empty space, as in the letters d and o.
6. (geography) A round crater (or similar) in the ground.

   Synonyms: crater, hollow

7. (sports, theater) An elliptical-shaped stadium or amphitheater resembling a bowl.
8. (American football) A postseason football competition, a bowl game (i.e. Rose Bowl, Super Bowl)

From Middle English bowle, boule, from Old French boule (“ball”), from Latin bulla (“bubble, stud, round object”). Doublet of poll.

bowl (plural bowls)

1. (bowls) The ball rolled by players in the game of lawn bowls.
2. (sports) The action of bowling a ball.

bowl (third-person singular simple present bowls, present participle bowling, simple past and past participle bowled)

1. (transitive) To roll or throw (a ball) in the correct manner in cricket and similar games and sports.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

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

2. (intransitive) To throw the ball (in cricket and similar games and sports).
3. (intransitive) To play bowling or a similar game.
4. To roll or carry smoothly on, or as on, wheels.

   We were bowled rapidly along the road.

   • 1950 November, R. A. H. Weight, “A Railway Recorder in Southern England”, in Railway Magazine, page 772:

     On busy days, they also may be seen bowling along the Brighton main line, north of Keymer Junction, with a relief Newhaven boat express, […] .

5. To pelt or strike with anything rolled.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, / And bowled to death with turnips.

• → Danish: bowle
• → Dutch: bowlen
• → German: bowlen

• Blow, b'low, blow