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 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
And the young man sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel of a spur through the laths.
From Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France by Weyman, Stanley J.
Row′el-head, the axis on which a rowel turns; Row′eling-need′le, a needle used for inserting a rowel or seton; Row′eling-scis′sors, a farrier's instrument for inserting rowels; Row′el-spur, a spur having several radiating points.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various
I should certainly prefer a spur with a rowel as "Southern Cross" recommends, but would it not be apt to tear the habit?
From Ladies on Horseback Learning, Park-Riding, and Hunting, with Hints upon Costume, and Numerous Anecdotes by Lambert, Nannie
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
She looked into his face in a way that roweled the man.
From Red Fleece by Comfort, Will Levington
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
Life seemed good while he was yet alive to fight for it; he had youth, strength, hope, and the spur of deeds to be done, all of which roweled his faith whenever it faltered.
From The Wilderness Trail by Williams, Frank
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 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 Day, Holman
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)
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 Day, Holman
On our left was an impassable hedge of small trees, crowning a heavy drop into the field outside the wood; our faces were rowelled by the branches of young spruce firs.
From Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. by Ross, Martin
He was as well here as elsewhere until some substantial reason or some inner spur rowelled him into action.
From The Hidden Places by Sinclair, Bertrand W.
For, as wakening drums, Your voice shall set his blood stirring; His heart shall grow strong like the main When the rowelled winds are spurring, And the broad tides landward strain.
From Dreams and Days: Poems by Lathrop, George Parsons
Here, in these desolate barren hills, twenty miles from the nearest human being, it stirred and woke and rowelled him to be moving on.
From McTeague by Norris, Frank
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
One such rowelling had just been taking place when, on the Sunday morning following the Easter holidays, Dolph Dennison dropped in to see Reed Opdyke.
From The Brentons by Dexter, Wilson C.
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
At that moment Lord Darby dashed up, his horse blown, its sides bloody with rowelling and flecked with foam.
From Beatrix of Clare by Underwood, Clarence F.
A rowelling pressure of haste drove him, while snares of trailing creepers, pitfalls blotted into darkness and the thickness of jungle-like undergrowth handicapped him with many stubborn difficulties.
From The Tempering by Buck, Charles Neville
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.
