Forms: 3 buel, 4 bewelle, bouel, 4–6 bowele, bowelle, 5 bawelly, boel, bowalle, bowaly, bowyle, boyell, 5–8 bowell, 3– bowel. [ME. buel, bouel, a. OF. boel, buel, bouel, masc. (also boele, buele, bouele fem.) = Pr. budel, It. budello:—late L. botellus pudding, sausage (Martial), in late pop.L. ‘a small intestine,’ dim. of botulus a sausage (cf. also PUDDING).]
I. sing.
1. One of the divisions of the alimentary canal below the stomach; an intestine, a gut. Now rare in the singular exc. in medical use.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 293. In a bouel of þat best he [Jonah] bidez on lyue.
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 265. She toke her after the bowele Or the seewolf.
1481. Caxton, Myrr., II. vi. 75. They [the Olyphaunts] haue to fore them in maner of boyell grete and large.
1552. Huloet, Brasten bowell, bubonocele.
1884. Nature, 27 March, 497/1. The seat of the disease, namely, the bowel.
† b. Gut (as a material). Obs.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum, 5. Harpe strynges made of bowel.
† c. Any internal organ of the body. Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 46. Bowalle or bowelle, viscus.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, viii. 169. These two bowels, especially the liuer, doe vehemently desire sweete things.
1674. R. Godfrey, Inj. & Ab. Physic, 118. The Stomach … so useful and necessary a Bowel that no Animal lives without it.
1782. T. Arnold, Insanity, II. 65. No bowel is more frequently mutilated … than the brain.
II. plural collectively.
2. The intestines or entrails; the portions of the intestinal canal contained within the abdomen.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 16505. His buels [later MS. boweles] all, vte at his wambe þai wrang.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 4668. Theo bowelis weoren y-nomen out, And for-brent.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xlii. (1495), 158. The bowelles ben cominly called the guttes.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 111 1. Good for the brekinge and bursting of the bowelles.
1611. Bible, Ezek. vii. 19. They shall not satisfie their soules, neither fill their bowels.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 800. They return, and howle and gnaw My Bowels, their repast.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 17, ¶ 7. The anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an animal.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 154. [It] brought on so violent an affection of his bowels.
1813. J. Thomson, Inflammation, 189. Bathing the feet and legs gives relief in inflammation of the bowels.
† b. The (external) belly. Obs. rare.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3932/4. Several Warts on him [a horse], one on his Ear, one on his Breast and Bowels.
c. The interior or inside of the body; also fig. Cf. womb, heart, bosom, breast. (rarely sing.)
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 497/2. I shall gyue my law in their bowele.
c. 1561. G. Cavendish, Life Wolsey (1825), I. 136. I do both lack wit in my poor old head, and cunning in my bowels.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. vi. 33. God will not haue vs to fall … to pulling out of his bowels as they doe which will needes bee searching out of measure.
1611. Bible, Gen. xv. 4. But he that shall come foorth out of thy owne bowels.
3. transf. (Considered as the seat of the tender and sympathetic emotions, hence): Pity, compassion, feeling, ‘heart.’ Chiefly pl., and now somewhat arch. Cf. HEART, BREAST.
1382. Wyclif, Phil. i. 8. Hou I coueite ȝou alle in the bowelis of Jhesu Crist.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., 24. Whenne she sawe his blody serke, all her bowelis weere troubelyd more than tunge may telle.
1611. Bible, Phil. ii. 1. If any bowels and mercies.
1651. Proc. Parliament, No. 110. 1695. Want of bowels in preaching towards them who are in hazard to perish.
1655. Fuller, Waltham Abb. (1840), 274. Bloody Bonner … full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.
1685. Crowne, Sir C. Nice, I. 5. The family is a sad family, and I tarry out of pure bowels.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4427/2. To shew their Bowels for their Country.
1798. Canning, in Anti-Jacobin, 14 May (1852), 104. ’Twould have moved a Christian’s bowels To hear the doubts he stated.
1832. Lytton, Eugene A., ii. I am a man that can feel for my neighbours. I have bowels—yes I have bowels.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., V. XIII. i. 2. Had idle readers any bowels for him; which they have not.
b. In various archaic phrases as: bowels of compassion, mercies, pity, etc.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 110 b. Close not your bowells of charite from them.
1611. Bible, Coloss. iii. 12. Put on therefore … bowels of mercies.
1642. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. § 2. Upon the bare suggestion and bowels of pity.
1794. Godwin, Cal. Williams, 279. The law has neither eyes, nor ears, nor bowels of humanity.
1873. Morley, Rousseau, II. 218, note. It has none of the yearnings of the bowels of tenderness.
4. The interior of anything; heart, center. Cf. BELLY sb. 9.
1548. Ld. Somerset, Epist. Scots, 243. Be we not in ye bowels now of the realme?
1584. Whetstone, Mirour Mag. Dicing-houses … within the bowelles of the Citie of London.
1589. Hay any Work, A iij. Thou wilt enter into the bowels of the cause in hand.
a. 1593. H. Smith, Wks. (1867), II. 265. Three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.
1696. Whiston, Th. Earth, II. 78. All Volcano’s or subterraneous Fires, are in the Bowels of some Mountain.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. 364. That monster in true policy … a body of men, residing in the bowels of a state, and yet independent of it’s laws.
c. 1860. Faraday, Forces Nat., vi. 164. Brought together in the bowels of the earth.
† 5. Offspring, children. Obs. [Cf. L. viscera.]
[1526. Tindale, Philem. 12. Receave him, that is to saye myne awne bowels.
1559. Morwyng, Evonym., 343. Sum put to it wormes or bowels of the earth.]
a. 1593. H. Smith, Serm. (1871), I. 289. We should not spare our own bowels.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 29. Thine owne bowels which do call thee, sire.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor., I. vii. Men … bowelless unto others, and merciless unto their own bowells.
III. 6. Comb. (of bowel-), as bowel-complaint; -like, -racking adjs.; also, bowel-deep, up to or as high as the middle; bowel-galled a., ? applied to a horse whose belly is fretted with the girth; † bowel-gazer, -prier, one who inspects the entrails of sacrificed animals for religious purposes, a haruspex; hence bowel-gazing, -prying; bowel-hive, -hives Sc., a popular name for infantile enteritis and similar affections; bowel-hive grass, a herbalists’ name for Alchemilla arvensis or Parsley-piert (Britten and Holland).
1828. Scott, Rev. Davy’s Salmonia (1849), 260. *Bowel-deep in the stream.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xxii. 335. Seneca saith … that the *Bowelgasers were inuented for nothing els but to holde the people in awe. Ibid., xxxii. 521. Where be … your Oracles, your *Bowelgazings and your Sacrifices?
1715. Pennecuik, Tweeddale, 7 (Jam.). The rickets in children, which they call the *Bowel-hyve.
1863. Rept. Registrar Gen. Scot., ‘Bowel-hives’ (or ‘bull-hives’), the vernacular name under which is included enteritis, convulsions, diarrhœa, dysentery, and teething.
1839–47. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., III. 549/1. The stomach [of Iulus] is long and *bowel-like.
1600. Holland, Livy, XLII. xxx. 1132. The *Bowell-priers [aruspices] … declared, That … they should make speed. Ibid., 287 (R.). The *bowell-prying soothsaier.
