TO BOWL OUT, verb. phr. (common).—To overcome; to get the better of; to defeat. Also thieves’ = to arrest, TO LAG (q.v.).
1819. J. H. VAUX, A Vocabulary of the Flash Language. BOWLED OUT,… when he [a thief] is ultimately taken, tried, and convicted, [he] is said TO BE BOWLED OUT at last.
1817. SCOTT, Rob Roy, iii. The polite and accomplished adventurer, who nicked you out of your money at White’s, or BOWLED YOU OUT of it at Marybone.
1852. F. E. SMEDLEY, Lewis Arundel, xxiv. ‘He’s handsomer than you are; if you don’t mind your play, he’ll BOWL YOU OUT.’
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ii. 121. Now and again a warder does get ‘BOWLED OUT,’ and comes to grief. At the very least he loses his situation.
TO BOWL OVER, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To defeat; to worst.
1862. Cornhill Magazine, 729. You have BOWLED me OVER, and I know I can’t get up again.
1878. H. M. STANLEY, Through the Dark Continent, II., 291. I sent in a zinc bullet close to the ear, which BOWLED it [the rhinoceros] OVER, dead.
1880. A. TROLLOPE, The Duke’s Children, xlvii. He confessed to himself that he was completely ‘BOWLED OVER,’—‘knocked off his pins!’
