Bowel
Pronunciation
- enPR: boul, IPA: /baÊŠl/
- Rhymes: -aÊŠl
Origin
From Middle French boel, from Latin botellus, diminutive of botulus ("sausage").
Full definition of bowel
Noun
bowel
(plural bowels)- (chiefly medicine) A part or division of the intestines, usually the large intestine.
- (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.
- (in the plural) The (deep) interior of something.The treasures were stored in the bowels of the ship.
- 1592, William Shakespeare, , I. i. 129:His soldiers ... cried out amain,
And rushed into the bowels of the battle. - (in the plural, archaic) The seat of pity or the gentler emotions; pity or mercy.
- 1602, William Shakespeare, , II. i. 48:Thou thing of no bowels, thou!
- FullerBloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.
- (obsolete, in plural) offspring
- 1604, William Shakespeare, , III. i. 29:Friend hast thou none,
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
Derived terms
Verb
- (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 ....