# bowel
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French bouel, from Old French boïel, from Latin botellus, diminutive of botulus (“sausage”). Doublet of boyau.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: bou'əl, boul, IPA: /ˈbaʊ.əl/, /baʊl/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -aʊəl, -aʊl

### Noun

bowel (plural bowels)
* (chiefly medicine) A part or division of the intestines, usually the large intestine.
* (in the plural) The entrails or intestines; the internal organs of the stomach.
** 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts:And when he was hanged, brast asondre in the myddes, and all his bowels gusshed out.
** c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:Leaue words & let them feele your lances pointes, UUhich glided through the bowels of the Greekes.
* (in the plural, figuratively) The (deep) interior of something.
    The treasures were stored in the bowels of the ship.
** 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], line 129:His soldiers […] cried out amain, / And rushed into the bowels of the battle.
* (in the plural, archaic) The seat of pity or the gentler emotions; pity or mercy.
** c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], line 48:Thou thing of no bowels, thou!
** 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of Waltham Abbey:Bloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.
* (obsolete, in the plural) offspring
** c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], line 29:Friend hast thou none, / For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

#### Derived terms

* bowel cancer
* bowelless
* bowel movement
* bowel obstruction
* bowel transit time
* disbowel
* disembowel
* embowel
* get one's bowels in an uproar
* inflammatory bowel disease
* irritable bowel syndrome
* large bowel
* nonbowel
* open one's bowels
* short bowel syndrome
* small bowel
* unbowel

#### Translations
### Verb

bowel (third-person singular simple present bowels, present participle bowelling or (US) boweling, simple past and past participle bowelled or (US) boweled)
* (now rare) To disembowel.
** 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 149:Their bodies are first bowelled, then dried upon hurdles till they be very dry [...].

### See also

* large bowel
* small bowel
* small intestine
* colon
* laxative
* tharm

### Anagrams

* Below, Blowe, Lebow, below, blowe, bowle, elbow