embowel
/ɛmˈbaʊ.əl/
embowel verb: to remove the bowels; disembowel.
Verb
embowel (third-person singular simple present embowels, present participle (US) emboweling or (UK) embowelling, simple past and past participle (US) emboweled or (UK) embowelled)
- To remove the bowels; disembowel.
- […] So had given no direction about his body. I have cauſed it to be embowelled, and depoſited in a vault, till I have orders from England.1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter CXIII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume VII, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 415
- Who doubts that the fineing, whipping, torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and children, guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith, had assisted the Pope and Philip, and their band of English, Scotch, and Irish conspirators, to shake Elizabeth's throne and endanger her...1867, John Lothrop Motley, Project Gutenberg History of The Netherlands, 1555–1623, Complete
- Synonyms:
- disembowel, eviscerate
- To enclose or bury.
- [H]e therefore hastened on, and conducted Carlstadt to the spot he had recently quitted, and discovered to him a rude mishapen entrance to a flight of steps, which appeared as conducting ones to some dwelling emboweled in the earth.1807, [Miss Guion], chapter II, in The Three Germans. Mysteries Exemplified in the Life of Holstein of Lutztein. A German Romance. […], volume I, London: […] J[ames] F[letcher] Hughes, […], →OCLC...
Synonyms of embowel
Forms of embowel
| third-person singular present | embowels |
|---|---|
| present participle US | emboweling |
| present participle UK | embowelling |
| past participle US | emboweled |
| past US | emboweled |
| past participle UK | embowelled |
| past UK | embowelled |
| alternative form (archaic) | imbowel |
Origin of embowel
From em- + bowel.
Words formed from embowel
Words that rhyme with embowel
15 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about embowel
- What does embowel mean?
- Embowel means to remove the bowels; disembowel.
- What part of speech is embowel?
- Embowel is a verb.
- How do you pronounce embowel?
- Embowel is pronounced /ɛmˈbaʊ.əl/.
- What is the past tense of embowel?
- The past tense of embowel is emboweled.
Words near embowel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: embowel (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-embowel.wav.
Cite this entry: “embowel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/embowel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
