rowel
Americannoun
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a small wheel with radiating points, forming the extremity of a spur.
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Veterinary Medicine. a piece of leather or the like inserted beneath the skin of a horse or other animal to promote drainage of an infection.
verb (used with object)
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to prick or urge with a rowel.
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Veterinary Medicine. to insert a rowel in.
noun
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a small spiked wheel attached to a spur
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obsolete vet science a piece of leather or other material inserted under the skin of a horse to act as a seton and allow drainage
verb
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to goad (a horse) using a rowel
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obsolete vet science to insert a rowel in (the skin of a horse) to allow drainage
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rowel
1350–1400; Middle English rowelle < Middle French ruelle, Old French roel < Late Latin rotella, equivalent to Latin rot ( a ) wheel + -ella -elle
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:
Johnny took off his spurs and showed the silversmith a broken rowel.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
He had found that men might growl at being treated "like dogs" but to rowel the human soul it was far better to act as though they did not exist at all.
From Command by William McFee
Upon his spurs all gory Twelve gilded birdies bore he; Each time with the rowel he pricked his horse The birdies sang with all their force.
From Ulf Van Yern and Other Ballads by George Henry Borrow
It was generally borne pierced with a round hole, and then represents, as its name implies, the rowel of a spur.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 3 "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand" by Various
I measured one which was six inches in the diameter of the rowel, and the rowel itself contained upward of thirty points.
From With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 1 by Various
What roweled the independents was their firm conviction that the scheduled lines could do the job only with the help of their Government "subsidies" in carrying air mail.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hart roweled Mondale from end to end of the country, leaving the Democratic candidate wounded and bleeding.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hike it, cowboys, For the range away On the back of a bronc of steel, With a careless flirt Of the raw-hide quirt And a dig of a roweled heel!
From Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads by Various
As Mose roweled him he kicked with both hind feet as if to tear the cinch from his belly.
From The Eagle's Heart by Hamlin Garland
Usually these legs were clothed in tight-fitting overalls, and his small feet incased in boots of high-grade leather wonderfully roweled.
From Bred of the Desert A Horse and a Romance by Marcus Horton
The thought of it spurred him every waking hour, roweling his wounded pride cruelly.
From Gunsight Pass How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West by William MacLeod Raine
An obsession of haste spurred her with the roweling of suspense and with the companionship of her troubled thoughts she walked on and on.
From A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck
The old schooner scrunched her way past the Olenia, roweling the yacht's glossy paint and smearing her with tar and slime.
From Blow The Man Down A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 by Holman Day
Very rarely did The Kid use the spurs, but he used them now, roweling Blizzard desperately.
From Kid Wolf of Texas by Paul S. (Paul Sylvester) Powers
Then another rider was on the trail: Tom Beck, roweling his horse, fanning his shoulders with the rein ends, crying aloud to him for speed, his gun in his holster, a useless thing.
From The Last Straw by Harold Titus
Under the plates the mail hose show themselves and the heels have rowelled spurs.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" by Various
His anger rowelled him on, and when he reached the opposite shore of the lake he was obliged to wait for the younger man to come floundering and panting up to him.
From King Spruce, A Novel by Holman Day
Now every bridle is grasped, every sword hilt in grip, and the rowelled heels are ready to dash into the horses' flanks at the first note of the trumpet blast.
From The Young Priest's Keepsake by Michael Phelan
Cursing the ancestry of such heartless jokers, Elias rowelled his horse's flanks with the sharp corners of his stirrups, and went off at a furious gallop.
From The Valley of the Kings by Marmaduke William Pickthall
"Where are you coming with that cayuse?" demanded young McCrae, and suddenly raked a rowelled heel behind the animal's shoulder.
From Desert Conquest or, Precious Waters by Clarence H. (Clarence Herbert) Rowe
What no system can bear indefinitely is the continual rowelling of its vitals by those who are trying to get rich.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was really quite extraordinary how much was accomplished under the nagging spur of weather conditions and the cruel rowelling of Thorpe.
From The Blazed Trail by Stewart Edward White
But Tom horse, facing homeward, needed none of the rowelling that he had demanded on the way up.
From Judith of the Godless Valley by Honoré Morrow
"I've thought about it—a good deal—too," was her simple response, and Boone forced himself on, rowelling his lagging speech with a determined will power.
From The Tempering by Charles Neville Buck
The rowelling bistoury, employed for the horses, answers better than the saw; but even it occasions so much pain as to cause serious annoyance and obstruction.
From The Dog by Dinks
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.
