bowled

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of bowl.

   She bowled a perfect game at the alley on Friday.

   He has bowled in three county matches this season.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty: the simple past (she bowled) and the participle after have or be (he has bowled, the ball was bowled). It carries every sense of the verb, including the cricketer's delivery, a game at the alley, and smooth rolling on wheels, as when a carriage bowled along the road. After was, the same form can mean the cricket dismissal instead.

2. 2
   adjective

   Out in cricket as a result of the delivered ball striking and breaking the batsman's wicket.

   The captain was bowled by a delivery that swung in late.

   She was bowled middle stump, ending a long partnership.

   Note

   Here the batsman is the one bowled. The passive names the person dismissed, not the ball. The dismissal stands when a legally delivered ball breaks the wicket and dislodges at least one bail, even if the ball first glances off the bat or body. The stump that was hit can follow directly, with no preposition, as in bowled middle stump.

3. 3
   adjectivein compounds

   Equipped with a bowl, or shaped with a concave, bowl-like form.

   The craftsman carved a bowled depression into the center of the wooden dish.

   The bowled curve of the antique chair's back made it surprisingly comfortable.

   Similarconcave, dished

   Oppositeconvex

   Note

   A word that mostly works as the second half of a compound. Dickens, in The Pickwick Papers (1836), gives a pipe that is "silver-bowled": the first element says what the bowl is made of or what it looks like, and the pair is hyphenated before the noun. It does not take degrees, so nothing is more bowled than something else. Used alone, as in a bowled curve, it is less common.

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