Word.ws English Dictionary

sowl

/saʊl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

dialectal/suːl/

sowl noun: a dainty; a relish; a sauce; anything eaten with bread. Also the archaic spelling of soul.

sowl: a dainty; a relish; a sauce; anything eaten with bread
Image: Becker1999 from Grove City, OH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

sowl (plural sowls)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A dainty; a relish; a sauce; anything eaten with bread.
    • Good lorjus days, whot whofo times ar' theese! / Pot-baws ar scant, an dear is seawl an cheese!1812, Tim Bobbin [pseudonym; John Collier], “Reader. Hear a Spon-new Cank between th’ Eawther and His Buk.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of Tim Bobbin, Esq. Containing His View of the Lancashire...
    • It [the word pittance] does not signify the whole share of each individual in a conventual meal, but merely that smaller portion of more tasty viands which in frugal housekeeping is used to give relish to the bread or pottage constituting the substance of the meal; what is still called sowl or...1850 May 10, Hensleigh Wedgwood, “English Etymologies [continued]”, in Proceedings of the Philological Society, volume IV, number 97, London: Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, […], →OCLC, page...

Verb (1)

UK/səʊl/US/soʊl/

sowl (third-person singular simple present sowls, present participle sowling, simple past and past participle sowled)

  1. (transitive) To pull (especially an animal) by the ears; to drag about.
    • Hee'l go he ſayes, and ſole the Porter of Rome Gates by th'ears. He will mowe all downe before him, and leaue his paſſage poul'd.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Like draws to like, ilk sma'-sowled cub, / To gnaw its Bane.1876, George Bruce, “Saint Andrews Burns’ Club”, in Destiny and Other Poems, St. Andrews, Fife: Printed for the author, →OCLC, page 387

Verb (2)

UK/səʊl/US/soʊl/

sowl (third-person singular simple present sowls, present participle sowling, simple past and past participle sowled)

  1. (obsolete) To soil or stain; to dirty.
    Synonyms:
    sullow, sully, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, befile, befilth

Also used as

sowl is also the archaic spelling of soul.

Synonyms of sowl

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of sowl

Forms of sowl

Noun
pluralsowls
alternative formseawl
alternative formsewl
alternative formsool
alternative formsoul
alternative formsoule
alternative formsow
alternative formsowe
alternative formsowel
alternative formsowle
alternative formsowli
Verb
third-person singular presentsowls
present participlesowling
past participlesowled
pastsowled

Origin of sowl

From Middle English sowel, souel, suvel (“food eaten with bread; food in general”), from Old English sufel, sufol (“anything (especially relish) eaten with bread; sowl”), from Proto-West Germanic *sufl, from Proto-Germanic *suflą (“entremets, viands”), from Proto-Indo-European *seu-, *sew- (“juice; moisture; rain”). The word is cognate with Danish sul (“sowl”), Middle Dutch suvel, zuvel (Dutch zuivel (“dairy products”)), Middle Low German suvel, süvel, suffel (“sowl”), Old High German sufil, sufili, Old Norse sufl, Norwegian suvl, sovl, sul (“milk porridge; food eaten with bread, porridge or soup”), Saterland Frisian süfel (“dairy products”), Swedish sovel (“sowl”), West Frisian suvel (“dairy products”).

From Middle English soul, soule, sowel, sawel (“soul”). See further at soul.

Origin unknown; compare German zaulen, zauseln, zausen (“to tug, drag”). See also tousle.

Words that rhyme with sowl

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sowl

What does sowl mean?
Sowl means a dainty; a relish; a sauce; anything eaten with bread.
What part of speech is sowl?
Sowl can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sowl?
Sowl is pronounced /saʊl/.
What is the plural of sowl?
The plural of sowl is sowls.

Words near sowl in the dictionary

  1. sowins
  2. Sowinski
  3. Sowinskis
  4. sowkin
  5. sowkins
  6. sowl
  7. sowle
  8. sowled
  9. sowles
  10. Sowleses
  11. sowlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sowl (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-soul.ogg.

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