bowel

Borrowed from Old French boiel, from Latin botellus, diminutive of botulus (“sausage”).

• enPR: bou'əl, boul, IPA^(key): /ˈbaʊ.əl/, /baʊl/
• Rhymes: -aʊəl, -aʊl

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.

   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, I. i. 129:

     His soldiers […] cried out amain, / And rushed into the bowels of the battle.

4. (in the plural, archaic) The seat of pity or the gentler emotions; pity or mercy.
   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, II. i. 48:

     Thou thing of no bowels, thou!

   • Fuller

     Bloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.

5. (obsolete, in the plural) offspring
   • 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure, for Measure, III. i. 29:

     Friend hast thou none, / For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

bowel (third-person singular simple present bowels, present participle bowelling or (US) boweling, simple past and past participle bowelled or (US) boweled)

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 [...].

• large bowel
• small bowel
• small intestine
• colon
• laxative
• tharm

• Below, Blowe, Lebow, below, blowe, bowle, elbow