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• Dust Bowl
  Dust Bowl

  noun

  a period, throughout the 1930s, when waves of severe drought and dust storms in the North American prairies occurred, having devastating consequences for the residents, livestock, and agriculture there.
• dust bowl
  dust bowl

  noun

  a semiarid area in which the surface soil is exposed to wind erosion and dust storms occur

Dust Bowl

American  

[duhst bohl] / ˈdʌst ˌboʊl /

noun

1. a period, throughout the 1930s, when waves of severe drought and dust storms in the North American prairies occurred, having devastating consequences for the residents, livestock, and agriculture there.

   When the Dust Bowl began, the Great Depression was already underway—it was one disaster on top of another.

2. the region that suffered from these waves of drought and dust storms, including the entire U.S. Midwest and, in Canada, the southern prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

   Our Oklahoma panhandle was smack dab in the center of that heartless Dust Bowl.

3. (lowercase) any similar dry region elsewhere.

   Where we see the tragic formation of dust bowls in Asia and Africa, overgrazing is believed to be the main culprit.

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dust bowl ¹ British  

noun

1. a semiarid area in which the surface soil is exposed to wind erosion and dust storms occur

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Dust Bowl ² British  

noun

1. the area of the south central US that became denuded of topsoil by wind erosion during the droughts of the mid-1930s

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Dust Bowl Cultural  

1. A parched region of the Great Plains, including parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, where a combination of drought and soil erosion created enormous dust storms in the 1930s. The novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, describes the plight of the “Okies” and “Arkies” uprooted by the drought and forced to migrate to California.

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Etymology

Origin of Dust Bowl

An Americanism dating back to 1935–40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Dust Bowl dust bowl

The so-called "Dust Bowl summers" of the 1930s -- especially that of 1936 -- were fueled by drought and extreme heat combining with overplowing across the Great Plains.

From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026

The proposed parks — Feather River Park in Yuba County, San Joaquin River Parkway near Fresno, and Dust Bowl Camp in Bakersfield — would serve historically park-poor communities with recreation and historic preservation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026

A decade and a half of gloom followed, during which, Mr. Gittlitz notes, the atmosphere of Dust Bowl privation at Shea was underscored by corn and tomato plants growing like subsistence crops in the bullpen.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026

The uprooting of prairies across the Great Plains and the Dust Bowl could not have occurred without the massive settler movement triggered by the Homestead Act of 1862.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2025

Mama used to tear photos from magazines, photos of the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s in America, when a long drought had stricken the Midwest.

From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata

Delhi, where temperatures in May hit 45C for several days running, is at particular risk of becoming "a dust bowl with extreme heat load," he said.

From Barron's ● May 31, 2026

"When marketers and publicists realized that TikTok was their best hope for attention, they swarmed, turning the app into a conventional promotional dust bowl."

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2024

When marketers and publicists realized that TikTok was their best hope for attention, they swarmed, turning the app into a conventional promotional dust bowl.

From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2024

Perhaps irony, like water for the swimming pool, is a resource that dries up seasonally in these parts, leaving only a dust bowl of surly resentment and some tatty deckchairs behind.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2023

Any farmer doing it would turn their land into a dust bowl within twelve years.

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir