boll
noun
a rounded seed vessel or pod of a plant, as of flax or cotton.
boll
1 American
[bohl]
/ boʊl /
noun
Botany.
-
bolls
plural
Böll
2
American
[bœ l]
/ bœl /
noun
boll
1
British
/ bəʊl /
noun
Böll
2
British
/ bœl /
noun
boll
Scientific
/ bōl /
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of boll
1400–50; late Middle English bolle, perhaps < Middle Dutch bolle ( Dutch bol ), though formally identical with bowl 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
With the boll weevil finishing off King Cotton, paper producers’ “plant ’em thick, cut ’em quick” approach spread.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
As close as they are to eradicating the boll weevil completely, farmers and the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation aren’t in the clear just yet.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 7, 2022
So the migration is as much about work and the boll weevil as it is about this notion of opportunity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 20, 2022
We assume he wove it himself out of whatever cotton-esque plants are flourishing after he killed exactly one-half the boll weevils on his planet of refuge.
From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2019
There was the feeling of impersonal plenty when I saw a boll of cotton whose cup had spilt over and straggled its white fleece toward the earth.
From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright
The second story, “The Long and Painful Death,” chronicles a female writer whose residency at the home of Heinrich Böll is soured by the arrival of a male academic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2023
The Green Party's foundation, named after Nobel Prize-winning German novelist Heinrich Böll, is in more than 30 countries.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2021
Di Benedetto was released in 1977, thanks to the intercession of the renowned Argentinean writer Ernesto Sábato and of the Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll, who wrote to the head of the military government.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 15, 2017
“This is a very emotional topic in Germany,” said Ralf Fücks, president of the Berlin-based Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the Green Party.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2014
Almost five years later, Germans have undergone “a brutal sobering up” with regard to Mr. Obama, said Ralf Fücks, who heads the board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.
From New York Times ● Jun. 19, 2013
Souloukna Mourga plodded through his flooded millet and cotton field in northern Cameroon and uprooted soggy stems that had a few bolls on them.
From Reuters ● Nov. 10, 2022
The cadenced distribution of cotton bolls across the picture just over their heads evokes musical notes written on a staff.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2021
Celina, who is African American, said Northam passed around raw cotton bolls and tobacco leaves for the whole tour group to touch.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 1, 2019
Her child cried, and it distracted her, slowed the accumulation of cotton bolls in her sack.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 28, 2017
I had trouble reaching the cotton bolls at the very top of the tall plants, so I leaned against the plants and pushed them over with my body until they touched the ground.
From "The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child" by Francisco Jiménez
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.
