Word.ws English Dictionary

punchbowl

US/ˈpʌnt͡ʃˌboʊl/

punchbowl noun: a large bowl used for making or serving punch (the beverage).

punchbowl: a large bowl used for making or serving punch (the beverage)
Image: Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

punchbowl (plural punchbowls)

  1. A large bowl used for making or serving punch (the beverage).

Proper noun capitalized: Punchbowl

Punchbowl

  1. A locality in the Clarence Valley council area, north eastern New South Wales, Australia.
  2. A valley in Belfield, Canterbury-Bankstown, South West Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
    Synonyms:
    Punch Bowl, Punch Bowl Valley, Punchbowl Valley
  3. A suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in Canterbury-Bankstown, South West Sydney.
  4. A neighbourhood of Launceston, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Punchbowl Crater: a volcano in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, United States.
  6. A valley in Yanggu, Gangwon Province, South Korea.
    • Last week, on the front north of the Punchbowl, a whole battalion of marines—nearly 1,000 men—was moved to a mountainous front-line sector by helicopter, in the largest operation of its kind to date.1951 October 22, “War in Asia”, in Time, volume LVIII, number 17, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27
    • Hill 930 here, about 100 miles northeast of Seoul, just above the village of Wontong, towers over a region still called the Punchbowl because that is what it looked like to G.I.'s during the Korean War.[…]
    • "The Korean War is to all accounts and purposes ignored," said Rudy Basurto of Lompoc, Calif., who was a medic with the 45th Division 33 years ago in the Punchbowl.1985 October 27, Clyde H. Farnsworth, “KOREA WAR VETERANS RETURN FOR ANOTHER LOOK”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 May 2015, Section 1, page 16
    Synonyms:
    Haean Basin

Synonyms of punchbowl

  • Punch Bowl
  • Punch Bowl Valley
  • Punchbowl Valley
  • Haean Basin

Forms of punchbowl

pluralpunchbowls
alternative formpunch bowl

Origin of punchbowl

From punch + bowl.

From punch bowl. From being a bowl-shaped valley. * (New South Wales): The suburb of Punchbowl is named after the valley of Punch Bowl in neighbouring Belfield. * (Korea): Coined by United Nations forces during the Korean War, when they fought a battle there.

Words formed from punchbowl

Phrases with punchbowl

Questions about punchbowl

What does punchbowl mean?
Punchbowl means a large bowl used for making or serving punch (the beverage).
What part of speech is punchbowl?
Punchbowl can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce punchbowl?
Punchbowl is pronounced /ˈpʌnt͡ʃˌboʊl/ (US).
What is the plural of punchbowl?
The plural of punchbowl is punchbowls.

Words near punchbowl in the dictionary

  1. punchbags
  2. punchball
  3. punchballs
  4. punchboard
  5. punchboards
  6. punchbowl
  7. punchbowls
  8. punchcard
  9. punchcards
  10. punchcutter
  11. punchcutters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punchbowl (page history and authors); Punchbowl (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:

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