billow
UK/ˈbɪl.əʊ//ˈbɪl.oʊ/
billow noun: a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.
Noun
billow (plural billows)
- A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.
- […] Whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll, / From the world's girdle to the frozen pole;1782, William Cowper, “Expostulation”, in Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.
- The snow fell hissing in the brine, / And the billows frothed like yeast.1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, in Ballads and Other Poems
Verb
billow (third-person singular simple present billows, present participle billowing, simple past and past participle billowed)
- To surge or roll in billows.
- During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains, […], billowing steadily eastward, it had rolled up the western slopes of the Siskiyou Range, […]1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 2, in The Understanding Heart
- The nuns' veils billowed and flapped behind the snaky line of girls as if the sisters were shooing the serpent from the Garden of Eden.1942, Emily Carr, “Chain Gang”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC
- To swell out or bulge.
- Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter I, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC
- She had changed her auburn hair. Instead of wearing it in a billowing puff over her brow, she had gathered it into a ponytail, secured with a length of yellow yarn.1983, Peter De Vries, chapter 9, in Slouching Towards Kalamazoo, page 125
Proper noun capitalized: Billow
Billow (plural Billows)
- A surname.
billow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
billow in Tamil
- ஓதம், அற்களம், அலை, திரை, கல்லோலம், பேரலை
billow in Urdu
- بڑی لہر, ہلکورا, لہر, ترنگ
billow in Bengali
- ঢেউয়ের মতো ফোলা, ঢেউ খেলা, বাতাসে ওড়া
billow in Malayalam
- billow; a large wave
- മൂരി mūri
More languagesFewer languages
- billow in Kannada
- ಗಾಳಿತುಂಬು, ಉಬ್ಬು, ಪೆರ್ದೆರೆ, ದೊಡ್ಡ ಅಲೆ
- billow in Punjabi
- ਛੱਲ challa
Examples of billow in a sentence
- But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks.1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 9:
- The banners outflame the blazing morn, / O'er billows of bayonet, sword, and spear.1864, Frank Moore, Songs of the Soldiers, page 238:
- And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.1873, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Brook and the Wave”, in Birds of Passage:
- Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?1922, Clark Ashton Smith, The Caravan:
Forms of billow
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | billows |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | billows |
| present participle | billowing |
| past participle | billowed |
| past | billowed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Billows |
Origin of billow
From Middle English *bilwe, borrowed from Old Norse bylgja, from Proto-Germanic *bulgijō. Cognates include Danish bølge (“wave”); Norwegian Bokmål bølge (“wave”), Norwegian Nynorsk bylgje (“wave”); Swedish bölja (“wave”); German Low German Bulge, Bulg, Bülg (“billow, wave”); German Bulge (“billow, wave”). Compare bellow, bawl.
Probably a variant of Bellow or Bellew.
Words formed from billow
- billow maiden
- billowous
- billowsome
- billowy
- billowingly
- embillow
Phrases with billow
Words that rhyme with billow
Questions about billow
- What does billow mean?
- Billow means a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.
- What is billow in Tamil?
- Billow in Tamil is ஓதம், அற்களம், அலை. See Billow meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use billow in a sentence?
- But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks.
- What part of speech is billow?
- Billow can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce billow?
- Billow is pronounced /ˈbɪl.oʊ/ (US).
- What is the plural of billow?
- The plural of billow is billows.
Words near billow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: billow (page history and authors); Billow (page history and authors); billow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); billow (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); billow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); മൂരി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); billow (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-billow.ogg, en-au-billow.ogg.
Cite this entry: “billow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/billow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.