bowls

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of bowl.

   The cupboard held a set of matching ceramic bowls.

   Workers carried bowls of rice out to every table.

   Note

   One spelling covers every countable bowl: salad bowls on a shelf, bowls of soup counted by what they hold, even the bowls of two spoons. The plural is perfectly regular. Keep it apart from the name of the sport, which looks identical but is treated as singular: bowls of rice are carried, but bowls is played.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of bowl.

   The captain bowls the opening over of the innings.

   Whenever the weather is fine, he bowls with the seniors at the park.

   Note

   The verb serves the cricket pitch and the bowling green alike, used with he, she or it. It works with an object (she bowls a fast delivery) or without one (he bowls on Sundays). It also reaches beyond sport: a car bowls along a smooth road, and a person can be pelted with whatever is bowled at them.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A precision sport in which players roll biased balls, weighted on one side, aiming to stop them closer to a small white target ball than their opponents can.

   Like curling on grass instead of ice, where you nudge your shot to rest nearest the mark.

   Bowls demands a steady hand and careful judgment of the green's slope.

   She took up bowls after retiring and now competes in regional tournaments.

   Note

   The game is named after its equipment. The biased balls themselves are called bowls, so the word does double duty. As the name of a sport it takes a singular verb (bowls demands patience, not bowls demand). The small white target has two names, the jack and the kitty, and each player tries to finish nearer to it than the opponent can.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A ball used in the sport of bowls, weighted or shaped on one side so that it follows a curved path as it rolls.

   The new set of bowls felt heavier than she had expected.

   Well-delivered bowls curve gently and settle right beside the jack.

   Similarwoods

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