to emit a hollow, loud, animal cry, as a bull or cow.
to roar; bawl.
bellowing with rage.
(intr) to make a loud deep raucous cry like that of a bull; roar
to shout (something) unrestrainedly, as in anger or pain; bawl
the characteristic noise of a bull
a loud deep sound, as of pain or anger
See cry.
before 1000; Middle English belwen, akin to Old English bylgan to roar (compare for the vowel Old High German bullôn ); extended form akin to bell 2
To bellow is to shout in a deep, angry voice. If you constantly bellow at other drivers on the road, consider signing up for anger management classes. Bellow comes from Middle English, and means "to roar like a bull." A cow's deep moo is called a low, so bellow just adds a big angry bull to the standard moo. We use bellow for human speech that has that angry power of a loud bovine, or for any loud, threatening noise. It can be a noun, as in the bellow of the thundercloud, or a verb, as when you bellow at your kid brother.
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In a 2002 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, he summed up his outlook by recalling a line uttered by an aunt of Saul Bellow.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 17, 2025
Letters of support were signed by everyone from Fred Astaire and Dick Cavett to Saul Bellow and Stevie Wonder.
From Seattle Times • Jan. 12, 2024
Author Saul Bellow, leaders of the Underground Railroad and high-definition images from the James Webb Space Telescope highlight the 2024 stamp-issuing program of the U.S.
From Washington Times • Oct. 23, 2023
If I accept the mightiness of Bellow and Nabokov, it’s partly because Amis persuaded me, both by the precepts of his criticism and the example of his fiction, which grapples with and overcomes their influence.
From New York Times • May 22, 2023
This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
