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
The rowel of his spur rattled as he jerked his foot up and down at the ankle.
From A Tar-Heel Baron by Holloway, Edward Stratton
The steel scabbards clank; As each rowel is pressed To a horse’s hot flank; And swift is their rush And the wild torrents flow, When it pours from the crag On the valley below.
From How the Flag Became Old Glory by Valentine, A. C.
The reason of this charge being called the spur fire is, because the sparks it yields have a great resemblance to the rowel of a spur, from whence it takes its name.
From Endless Amusement A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments by Unknown
It is less a Great Adventure, perhaps, but, on the other hand, the double-pointed tooth of Anxiety does not rowel quite so often at the core of your heart....
From The Prairie Mother by Becher, Arthur E.
Hart roweled Mondale from end to end of the country, leaving the Democratic candidate wounded and bleeding.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
She looked into his face in a way that roweled the man.
From Red Fleece by Comfort, Will Levington
But decency did not explain or defend the fact that he roweled his willing pinto all the way, and arrived in a state of mind that was the reverse of felicitation.
From The Fifth Ace by Gage, George W.
The dugout of Tucu leaped away like a roweled horse.
From The Pathless Trail by Friel, Arthur O. (Arthur Olney)
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 Titus, Harold
Very rarely did The Kid use the spurs, but he used them now, roweling Blizzard desperately.
From Kid Wolf of Texas by Powers, Paul S. (Paul Sylvester)
It was still another spur roweling me back to the ring of combat.
From The Prairie Mother by Becher, Arthur E.
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 Raine, William MacLeod
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 Buck, Charles Neville
The musical ring of his rowelled spurs ceased as he grasped her hands.
From A Tar-Heel Baron by Holloway, Edward Stratton
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 Phelan, Michael
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
He had been leaning against the front wall of the National, thoughtfully removing some more of its paint by scraping it with the big rowelled Mexican spurs which he affected.
From The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings by Burnham, Margaret
Saint Peter's had never doubted the force or the efficiency of its doctrines; but it was at least a generation since it had been so rowelled with their points.
From The Brentons by Dexter, Wilson C.
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
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
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 Morrow, Honoré
The red-sashed, silver-spurred Buck Bellew reined in closer to his companions, rowelling his little active "paint" horse as he did so, till it jumped and curvetted.
From The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings by Burnham, Margaret
For, what great, black horse is this which, despite Carnaby's flailing whip and cruel, rowelling spur, is slowly, surely creeping up with the laboring gray?
From The Amateur Gentleman by Farnol, Jeffery
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.
