bowl
Pluralbowls
Pluralbowls
- 1A roughly hemispherical container used to hold, mix, or present food such as soup, salad, or fruit.
The chef tossed the salad in a wide ceramic bowl.
Mixing bowls of various sizes lined the kitchen shelf.
Similardish
- 2A postseason American football competition, such as the Rose Bowl or Super Bowl.
The Tigers earned a spot in a major bowl this December.
Several bowls are played during the holiday season.
UsageAlso called a bowl game. Each game has a capitalized name: the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl.
Note
American football's postseason games, especially in college football, carry the name: the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl and many more. Many are named for a sponsor or host city, and the tradition has long gathered around New Year's.
- 3The amount that fills a bowl, thought of as a serving or measure of food or drink rather than the dish itself.
The children finished a bowl of popcorn during the movie.
After the hike, he wolfed down two bowls of chili.
UsageUsed with of: a bowl of soup, two bowls of chili. Bowlful says the same without suggesting the dish itself.
- 4To play bowling or a similar game in which a ball is rolled.
We bowl in a local league every winter.
She learned to bowl as a child at her grandfather's club.
UsageIn everyday talk, usually go bowling: we go bowling on Fridays.
- 5A dish made of a mix of different foods, not all necessarily cooked, served together in a bowl.
The café's signature bowl combines quinoa, roasted vegetables, and tahini.
Poke bowls have become a popular lunch option in many cities.
Note
A menu word more than a kitchen one: the meal is named for its vessel, and it travels in compounds such as poke bowl and grain bowl. Writing in The New York Times in 2021, Jane Black described "grain bowls galore" for diners who could spend $10 or more a meal, set against fast food for everyone else.
- 6In cricket and similar games, to deliver the ball to the batter in the way the rules require.
The young player bowled tirelessly all afternoon.
Teams take turns to bowl and to bat.
UsageIn cricket, say bowl, not throw: calling a delivery a throw says it broke the rules.
Similardeliver
Note
In international cricket a bowler may straighten the elbow by up to 15 degrees between the arm passing shoulder height and the release. A delivery that straightens it further is a throw, and it is illegal.
- 7The rounded, hollow part of an object, such as the part of a spoon that holds food or the basin of a fountain.
Rainwater gathered in the bowl of the old stone fountain.
The bowl of the wineglass curved up from its slender stem.
Similarbasin
- 8An act or turn of bowling a ball, including a spell of bowling in cricket.
With the two batters well set, the captain turned to his part-time spinner and offered him a bowl from the river end.
After a quiet morning in the field, she finally got a bowl just before tea and removed both openers.
Similardelivery
- 9An elliptical stadium or amphitheater whose curved, sloping sides resemble the shape of a bowl.
Crowds streamed into the bowl as the orchestra tuned up.
On summer nights the city's open-air bowl fills with concertgoers, its curved rows of seats rising steeply above the stage.
Similaramphitheater, stadium, arena
Note
A stadium or amphitheater with curved rows of seats rising above a field or stage. Sloping seating helps spectators see over those in front. The Yale Bowl, opened in 1914, inspired the Rose Bowl’s design and name. The Hollywood Bowl is named for the natural hollow into which it is built.
- 10A rounded crater or similar hollow depression in the ground.
The meteorite left a shallow bowl in the desert floor.
Snow gathers in the mountain's high bowls each winter.
Note
Geographers use it for shape, not cause. A crater suggests that something made it, while a bowl is any roughly circular hollow whose sides slope to a low center. Impact, erosion, subsidence or volcanic collapse may have formed it. That makes bowl the safer word when the origin is unknown, and hollow its plainer near-synonym.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Impact can produce a bowl-shaped depression. nasa.gov
- Erosion can produce a bowl-shaped depression. nps.gov
- Subsidence can produce a bowl-shaped depression. dnr.mo.gov
- Volcanic collapse can produce a bowl-shaped depression. volcanoes.sdsu.edu
- 11In cricket, to dismiss a batter with a delivery that strikes the wicket and dislodges the bails.
Aim at the stumps: the surest way to bowl a nervous opener is a full, straight delivery.
The veteran was bowled for 41 when a ball cut back off the seam and sent his bails flying.
UsageThe batter is the object: bowl a batter. Most often passive, with the score: was bowled for 41.
Less common meanings
- 12The hollow part of a pipe, bong, or similar implement that holds the material to be burned.
She tapped the spent ash out of the bowl before refilling it.
A clay pipe with a wide bowl rested on the windowsill.
- 13A single helping of burnable material packed into a pipe or bong to be consumed at one time.
She packed another bowl and passed the pipe around the circle.
Back at the campsite, they smoked one bowl between them and spent the rest of the night watching the stars.
UsageGoes with its own verbs: pack a bowl, smoke a bowl, pass it around.
Note
The same shift as the "bowlful" meaning, applied to a pipe: the hollow gives its name to the load packed into it. It also counts doses, as in Mark Arax's West of the West: "One bowl of some purple Kush, and I'm done for a couple of hours."
- 14A haircut that trims straight hair to a single even line all around the head, giving it the shape of a bowl.
In the old class photo, nearly every boy wears the same neat bowl, cut straight across the forehead.
In old family photos, my brother wears the bowl haircut our mother gave him.
UsageUsually in bowl cut or bowl haircut rather than bowl alone.
- 15To roll or carry along smoothly and quickly, as if on wheels.
Trucks bowl along the new highway without a single bump.
On a clear morning it is a joy to bowl along the empty coastal road with the windows down.
UsageUsually followed by along: cars bowl along the highway.
Note
A verb of easy, rapid motion, usually paired with along. It works in both directions. Passengers can be bowled along ("we were bowled rapidly along the road"), or a vehicle can do the bowling itself, as the locomotives seen bowling along the Brighton main line in R. A. H. Weight's 1950 report in Railway Magazine.
- 16The curved stroke of a letter that encloses empty space, as in the letters d and o.
She narrowed the bowl of the lowercase a to balance the typeface.
The bowl of the d meets the ascender at a sharp angle.
Note
Type designers keep two terms apart here. The bowl is the curved stroke itself, and the empty space it encloses is the counter. A designer narrows or widens the bowl, and the counter changes with it. Letters such as b, d and o each have one. In d, the bowl is the round part that meets the upright stroke.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The bowl is the curved stroke, while the counter is the enclosed empty space. maylett.net
- The lowercase letters b, d and o each have one bowl. en.wikipedia.org
- In d, the bowl is the rounded part attached to the upright stroke. fontfabric.com
- 17The ball itself, the solid object that a player rolls along the grass toward a target in the game of lawn bowls.
Her final bowl nestled right beside the jack.
He delivered each bowl with a smooth, low release.
UsageThe game is bowls (play bowls); one ball is a bowl.
Note
The other bowl, a different word altogether: Old French boule, "ball," from Latin bulla, "bubble, stud, round object," the same source as a papal bull. The ball is shaped with a bias, so it curves as it slows, and players aim it at the jack.
- 18To pelt or strike a target with something rolled.
Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, / And bowled to death with turnips.
c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”Similarpelt, strike, hit, bombard
Note
An attack carried out by rolling rather than hurling. Shakespeare puts it to comic use in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where a character would rather be "set quick i' the earth, / And bowled to death with turnips." The absurd missile is the joke.
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Origins
From Middle English "bolle," from Old English "bolla" or "bolle" (bowl, cup, pot, beaker), going back to Proto-Germanic "*bullǭ" (ball, round vessel). It is related to Dutch "bol" (ball, sphere), German "Bolle" (bulb), and Icelandic "bolli" (cup).
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Bowl comes from Middle English bolle, from Old English bolla or bolle. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old English words meant bowl, cup, pot or beaker. en.wiktionary.org
- The word goes back to reconstructed Proto-Germanic *bullǭ, meaning ball or round vessel. en.wiktionary.org
- Bowl is related to Dutch bol, meaning ball or sphere. en.wiktionary.org
- Bowl is related to German Bolle, meaning bulb. en.wiktionary.org
- Bowl is related to Icelandic bolli, meaning cup. en.wiktionary.org
Latin "bulla" (bubble, stud, round object) became Old French "boule" (ball), which passed into Middle English as "bowle." "Bull," as in "papal bull," is its doublet.