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
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
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
If the rowel is moderately sharp only, no cruelty can arise, less I maintain than in the use of a whip.
From Ladies on Horseback Learning, Park-Riding, and Hunting, with Hints upon Costume, and Numerous Anecdotes by Lambert, Nannie
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
Lefty grinned in the moonlight, roweled his horse lightly and drifted.
From Kid Wolf of Texas by Powers, Paul S. (Paul Sylvester)
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 Horton, Marcus
She looked into his face in a way that roweled the man.
From Red Fleece by Comfort, Will Levington
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
It was still another spur roweling me back to the ring of combat.
From The Prairie Mother by Becher, Arthur E.
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
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
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)
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
I rowelled your horse and he thundered on, While in my arms you cuddled, and sighed; And I kissed your hair and lips—and lied When you asked if the coming light was the dawn?
From With the Colors Songs of the American Service by Appleton, Everard Jack
"Oh, get along, you dromedary!" she muttered and rowelled her horse sharply.
From The Last Straw by Titus, Harold
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
Around you smoky clouds like ogres tower; The earth is rowelled deep with spurs of flame, And on your helmet stones and ashes shower.
From Rhymes of a Red Cross Man by Service, Robert W. (Robert William)
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
Only the most merciless of rowelling could goad the jaded beast out of a jog except for short spurts.
From Bloom of Cactus by Coleman, Ralph P. (Ralph Pallen)
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
Slingsby is plying his whip, Carnaby is rowelling savagely, yet, neck and neck, the sorrel and the gray race for the jump, with Barnabas and the Marquis behind.
From The Amateur Gentleman by Farnol, Jeffery
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
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.
