Word.ws English Dictionary

jowl

/d͡ʒaʊl/

jowl noun: the jaw, jawbone; especially one of the lateral parts of the mandible.

Noun (1)

jowl (plural jowls)

  1. The jaw, jawbone; especially one of the lateral parts of the mandible.
    • I had lain, therefore, all that time, cheek by jowl with Blackbeard himself, with only a thin shell of tinder wood to keep him from me, and now had thrust my hand into his coffin and plucked away his beard.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC
    • And he smote Corinius on his shaven jowl with the dice box, calling him cheat and mangy rascal, whereupon Corinius drew forth a bodkin to smite him in the neck withal; […]1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 33

Verb (1)

jowl (third-person singular simple present jowls, present participle jowling, simple past and past participle jowled)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To throw, dash, or knock.
    • That ſkull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knave iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder, this might be the pate of a pollitician, which this aſſe now ore-reaches; one that would circumuent God, might it not?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...

Noun (2)

jowl (plural jowls)

  1. A fold of fatty flesh under the chin, around the cheeks, or lower jaw (as a dewlap, wattle, crop, or double chin).
  2. The cheek; especially the cheek meat of a hog.
  3. A cut of fish including the head and adjacent parts

Verb (2)

jowl (third-person singular simple present jowls, present participle jowling, simple past and past participle jowled)

  1. (dialectal, transitive) To knock, bump, strike against; hit, strike; peck at.
  2. (dialectal, transitive) To jolt or shake roughly; shake up, mix together.
  3. (dialectal, transitive) To rumble.
  4. (dialectal, transitive) To toll, knell.

Noun (3)

jowl (plural jowls)

  1. (dialectal) A blow, bump, knock.
  2. (dialectal) The tolling of a bell; knell.

jowl meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

jowl in Tamil

அலை தாடை, தாடை எலும்பு, கன்னம்

jowl in Urdu

گال, جبڑا, کلہ, خد, رخسار

jowl in Bengali

চোয়াল, হনু, গাল, কপোল, ভারী চোয়ালওয়ালা

jowl in Malayalam

കീഴ്താടിയെല്ല്
More languagesFewer languages
jowl in Kannada
ದವಡೆ, ಕೆಳದವಡೆ, ಗಲ್ಲ, ಕಪೋಲ

Examples of jowl in a sentence

  • Ernest Cramer, the mayoral contender, was a chunky man with a waxish grin and heavy jowls.
  • For instance, after Steed says she and a Russian spy will be working “cheek to jowl,” Mrs.
  • Peel, with a twinkle in her eye, responds that “his cheek will come nowhere near my jowl.”

All 14 example sentences with jowl

Forms of jowl

Noun
pluraljowls
alternative formchowl
alternative formjoul
alternative form (obsolete)jole
alternative form (obsolete)joll
Verb
third-person singular presentjowls
present participlejowling
past participlejowled
pastjowled
alternative form (obsolete)geoll
alternative form (obsolete)joule

Origin of jowl

From Middle English jawle, chawl, chavel (“jaw, jawbone”), from Old English ċeafl (“jaw, cheek”), from Proto-West Germanic *kafl (“jaw, cheek”). The modern form (for expected chavel, chawl; still found dialectally) is influenced by jaw, which it is a partial doublet of.

From Middle English cholle (“wattle, jowl”), from Old English ċeole (“throat”), from Proto-West Germanic *kelā, from Proto-Germanic *kelǭ (“gullet”) (compare Scots choll, West Frisian kiel, Dutch keel, German Kehle), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelu- (“to swallow”) (compare Old Irish in·gilid (“to graze”), Irish goile (“stomach”), Latin gula (“throat”), gluttiō (“to swallow”), Russian глота́ть (glotátʹ, “to swallow, gulp”), Ancient Greek δέλεαρ (délear, “lure”), Armenian կլանել (klanel, “to swallow”), Persian گلو (galu), Hindi गला (galā, “neck, throat”)).

From Middle English jollen, chollen (“to knock, strike, batter; stagger”). Related to jow (“to knock, bump, ring”).

Words formed from jowl

Phrases with jowl

Words that rhyme with jowl

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about jowl

What does jowl mean?
Jowl means the jaw, jawbone; especially one of the lateral parts of the mandible.
What is jowl in Tamil?
Jowl in Tamil is அலை தாடை, தாடை எலும்பு, கன்னம். See Jowl meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is jowl?
Jowl can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce jowl?
Jowl is pronounced /d͡ʒaʊl/.
What is the plural of jowl?
The plural of jowl is jowls.

Words near jowl in the dictionary

  1. Jowell
  2. Jowett
  3. Jowetts
  4. jowing
  5. Jowitt
  6. jowl
  7. jowled
  8. jowler
  9. jowlers
  10. jowlier
  11. jowliest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jowl (page history and authors); jowl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jowl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jowl (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jowl (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jowl (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-jowl.wav.

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