Obs. Forms: 5 chesbowlle, chesebolle, chessebolle, 5–6 chesboll(e, 6 chesboull, cheseboule, Sc. chasbolle, 6–7 chesboule, cheesebowl(e, Sc. chesbow, 7 chessboll, cheesbowl, cheeseboul, Sc. chasbow. [Cited in Promp. Parv. and by a number of authors as cheesebowl, supposed to have some reference to the form of the seed-vessel. Phonetically there is no objection to this, as cheese, ME. chese, in composition has become ches- as in CHESFORD, cheslip or CHEESELIP, and bolle is the ME. form of BOWL; but the reason for the name is not obvious. The word is to some extent mixed with chibolle, CHIBOL, chesbolle being given in various 15th-c. Vocabularies as ‘onion,’ and chebole in one as ‘poppy.’

1

  (The conjecture that chesboll = ‘ball of pebbly seeds,’ as if the first part were chesil, OE. ceosel, has no basis in fact.)]

2

  A poppy; particularly the Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum).

3

c. 1420.  Pallad. on Husb., X. 134. Chesbolles nowe beth sowe in hoote and drie.

4

c. 1425.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 644. Hec papauer, chesbolle.

5

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 73. Chesebolle, papaver.

6

1533.  Bellenden, Livy, I. liv. (1822), 94. He straik of the hedis of the chesbowis … with his club.

7

1544.  Phaër, Regim. Lyfe (1560), R iij. The heades of poppie, called chesbolles.

8

1549.  Compl. Scot., xi. 94. Quhar that he gat ony chasbollis that greu hie, he straik the heidis fra them.

9

1597.  Gerard, Herbal, lxviii. 298. Poppie is called … in English Poppie, and Cheesebowles.

10

1611.  Cotgr., Oliette, Poppie, Chessbolls, or Cheese-bowles.

11

c. 1630.  Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 2/2. Beneath a sleepy chesbow.

12

1657.  W. Coles, Adam in Eden, i. 6. Poppy for the most part, yet in some Countries it is called Red-weed; in others … Cheesebouls.

13

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. 67/2. Pash-Poles, or Chesboule, are double Poppies.

14

  b.  attrib.

15

c. 1440.  MS. Lincoln, A. i. 17 fol. 9 (Halliw.). A male fulle of chesebolle sede.

16

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, IV. ix. 28. Sleipryfe chesbow seid. Ibid., IX. vii. 150. As the chesbow hedes oft we se Bow down thare knoppis.

17

  ¶ = CHIBOL, an onion.

18

c. 1410.  Swete Susane, 105 (MS. Phillips c. 1410). The cheruyle, þe cholet, þe chesboll, þe cheve [(Vernon MS. a. 1400) Þe chyue and þe chollet, þe chibolle, þe cheue].

19

c. 1425.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 644. Hec sepula, chesbolle.

20

1483.  Cath. Angl., 62. A Chesse bolle [v.r. Chesbowlle], papauer, ciuolus.

21

a. 1500.  Nominale, in Wr.-Wülcker, 710. Hec sepa, a chesbolle.

22