bowel
- Anatomy.
- Usually bowels.the intestine.
- a part of the intestine.
- bowels,
- the inward or interior parts: the bowels of the earth.
- Archaic.feelings of pity or compassion.
- to disembowel.
Origin of bowel
Examples from the Web for bowels
Contemporary Examples
The last body finally was recovered from the bowels of the ship in October.
The one woman since Rivers to find success in late-night, Chelsea Handler on the bowels of cable on the E!
Joan Rivers's Trailblazing, Troubled, and Complicated Role in Late-Night TVKevin Fallon
September 5, 2014
In my dreams he was a sensual man who also had a hard time moving his bowels.
The bacteria in the bowels of livestock are influenced by the antibiotics gobbled up.
I felt I had to tread carefully because the man, were he alive, would not appreciate a discussion of his bowels.
Historical Examples
I wish the Admiralty had my complaint: but they have no bowels, at least for me.
The Life of Horatio Lord NelsonRobert Southey
If the cramp attack the stomach or bowels, it is attended with considerable danger: medicine may relieve but cannot cure.
There should be at least one good movement of the bowels each day.
Treatise on the Diseases of WomenLydia E. Pinkham
Undoubtedly, things were happening deep in the bowels of Hydrot.
The Terror from the DepthsSewell Peaslee Wright
Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he was jugged."
The Paliser caseEdgar Saltus
bowel
- an intestine, esp the large intestine in man
- (plural) innards; entrails
- (plural) the deep or innermost part (esp in the phrase the bowels of the earth)
- (plural) archaic the emotions, esp of pity or sympathy
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for bowels
bowel
n.
c.1300, from Old French boele "intestines, bowels, innards" (12c., Modern French boyau), from Medieval Latin botellus "small intestine," originally "sausage," diminutive of botulus "sausage," a word borrowed from Oscan-Umbrian, from PIE *gwet-/*geut- "intestine" (cf. Latin guttur "throat," Old English cwið, Gothic qiþus "belly, womb," German kutteln "guts, chitterlings").
Greek splankhnon (from the same PIE root as spleen) was a word for the principal internal organs, which also were felt in ancient times to be the seat of various emotions. Greek poets, from Aeschylus down, regarded the bowels as the seat of the more violent passions such as anger and love, but by the Hebrews they were seen as the seat of tender affections, especially kindness, benevolence, and compassion. Splankhnon was used in Septuagint to translate a Hebrew word, and from thence early Bibles in English rendered it in its literal sense as bowels, which thus acquired in English a secondary meaning of "pity, compassion" (late 14c.). But in later editions the word often was translated as heart. Bowel movement is attested by 1874.
bowel
(bou′əl, boul)- The intestine. Often used in the plural.
bowel
- The intestine.