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 name of Richard Clyde was to his impatient, jealous spirit, as is the rowel to the fiery steed.
From Ernest Linwood or, The Inner Life of the Author by Hentz, Caroline Lee
The gray wool shirt was wrinkled and stained by weather and wear, the roomy corduroy trousers were worn from saddle chafing, the big spurs were rusted of rowel and shank.
From Trail's End by Ogden, George W. (George Washington)
Of course Jack was too game to let on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen a rowel for Lory.
From The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier by Bronson, Edgar Beecher
Oh—nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you the other day, you'd mebbe met before.
From Bat Wing Bowles by Coolidge, Dane
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
As they left the bank a cowboy rode up on a flea-bitten roan that was lathered with sweat, sadly roweled and leg-weary.
From Rimrock Trail by Dunn, J. Allan, (Joseph Allan)
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
"You're right!" groaned Nelson, who felt himself roweled by circumstances.
From The Mission of Janice Day by Turner, Corinne
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)
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
Far to the west a faint report was heard and Pete knew that Skinny was roweling the lathered sides of his straining horse.
From Hopalong Cassidy by Mulford, Clarence 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
It was still another spur roweling me back to the ring of combat.
From The Prairie Mother by Becher, Arthur E.
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
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
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.
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
"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 Rowe, Clarence H. (Clarence Herbert)
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
"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 Buck, Charles Neville
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.
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
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.
