Obs. Also 4–5 bollun, 5 bolle; and 6 boln(e, boalne, bowlne. [pa. pple. of BELL v.1 Obs. to swell; cf. BOLGHEN. In the 16th c. there was a monosyllabic variant boln, etc. (see β); also in Sc. a form BOLDEN, mod. bowden, with d generated between l and n.]
Swollen; inflated, puffed up.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 282. A bleddre ibollen ful of winde.
c. 1340. Cursor M., 12685 (Trin.). His knees þerof were bollen so [v.r. bolnd, bolned].
1382. Wyclif, 2 Tim. iii. 4. Bollun with proude thouȝtis.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, VIII. xv. (1554), 186 b. Tofore Bochas came Hermenricus … Inflate and bolle.
1493. Festyvall (W. de W., 1515), 99. His knees … were bollen out lyke a camell.
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 1417. Here one, being thronged, bears back, all bollen and red.
β. Boln, bolne, boalne, bowlne. [Cf. swoln.]
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., 135. His breste fatte, and bolne in the wast.
a. 1547. Surrey, Æneid, II. 346. Whose feet were bowln With the strait cords.
1566. Studley, Seneca’s Medea (1581), 133. His body boalne big, wrapt in lumpes.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. III. (1641), 225/1. With foaming fury swoln, With boystrous beasts of angry tempests boln.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXVIII. ix. 347. With a big and bolne necke of his owne.
