English
bowel
Pronunciation
  • enPR bou'əl, IPA: /ˈbaʊ.əl/, /baʊl/
Noun

bowel (plural bowels)

  1. (chiefly, medicine) A part or division of the intestines, usually the large intestine.
  2. (in the plural) The entrails or intestines; the internal organs of the stomach.
    • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts I:
      And when he was hanged, brast asondre in the myddes, and all his bowels gusshed out.
  3. (in the plural) The (deep) interior of something.
    The treasures were stored in the bowels of the ship.
    • 1592, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, I. i. 129:
      His soldiers […] cried out amain, / And rushed into the bowels of the battle.
  4. (in the plural, archaic) The seat of pity or the gentler emotions; pity or mercy.
    • 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, II. i. 48
      Thou thing of no bowels, thou!
    • Bloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.
  5. (obsolete, in plural) offspring
    • 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure, for Measure, III. i. 29:
      Friend hast thou none, / For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

bowel (bowels, present participle bowelling; past and past participle bowelled)

  1. (now rare) To disembowel.
    • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, page 149:
      Their bodies are first bowelled, then dried upon hurdles till they be very dry [...].


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