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Webster 1913 Edition


Bowel

Bow′el

,
Noun.
[OE.
bouel
,
bouele
, OF.
boel
,
boele
, F.
boyau
, fr. L.
botellus
a small sausage, in LL. also intestine, dim. of L.
botulus
sausage.]
1.
One of the intestines of an animal; an entrail, especially of man; a gut; – generally used in the plural.
He burst asunder in the midst, and all his
bowels
gushed out.
Acts i. 18.
2.
pl.
Hence, figuratively: The interior part of anything;
as, the
bowels
of the earth
.
His soldiers . . . cried out amain,
And rushed into the
bowels
of the battle.
Shakespeare
3.
pl.
The seat of pity or kindness. Hence: Tenderness; compassion.
“Thou thing of no bowels.”
Shak.
Bloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of
bowels
.
Fuller.
4.
pl.
Offspring.
[Obs.]
Shak.

Bow′el

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Boweled
or
Bowelled
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Boweling
or
Bowelling
.]
To take out the bowels of; to eviscerate; to disembowel.

Webster 1828 Edition


Bowel

BOW'EL

,
Verb.
T.
To take out the bowels; to eviscerate; to penetrate the bowels.

Definition 2024


bowel

bowel

English

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.
  4. (in the plural, archaic) The seat of pity or the gentler emotions; pity or mercy.
  5. (obsolete, in the plural) offspring

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

bowel (third-person singular simple present bowels, present participle bowelling, simple 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 [...].

See also

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