bowl over

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

1. (idiomatic) To overwhelm; to cause to fall to the ground.
   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I, II, or III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     This tribe lived largely upon the smaller animals which they bowled over with their stone hatchets after making a wide circle about their quarry and driving it so that it had to pass close to one of their number.

   • 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC‎:

     The Celtic midfielder appeared to be bowled over by Milorad Pekovic but Italian referee Luca Banti waved play on.

2. (idiomatic) To overwhelm with astonishment or wonder; to flabbergast.
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bowl,‎ over.

• blow over, overblow, overbowl