Word.ws English Dictionary

bowling a googly

bowling a googly is the present participle and gerund of bowl a googly.

Meaning of bowl a googly

Verb

bowl a googly (third-person singular simple present bowls a googly, present participle bowling a googly, simple past and past participle bowled a googly)

  1. (UK, figuratively, idiomatic, transitive) to surprise (someone); to introduce (to someone) something unexpected, underhand or requiring a quick reaction or correction.
    • Fred bowled me a googly when he asked me to explain those statistics in the meeting.
  2. (ambitransitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bowl, googly.
    Synonyms:
    catch unawares, catch off guard, wrong-foot

Questions about bowling a googly

What is bowling a googly the present participle and gerund of?
Bowling a googly is the present participle and gerund of bowl a googly.

Words near bowling a googly in the dictionary

  1. bowlin'
  2. bowline
  3. bowlined
  4. bowlines
  5. bowling
  6. bowling a googly
  7. bowling alley
  8. Bowling Alley Point
  9. bowling alleys
  10. bowling alone thesis
  11. bowling average

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bowling a googly (page history and authors); bowl a googly (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.

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Cite this entry: “bowling a googly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bowling_a_googly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.