bellow

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The deep roar of a large animal, or any similar loud noise.
verb
  1. To make a loud, deep, hollow noise like the roar of an angry bull.
  2. To shout in a deep voice.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

/ˈbɛloʊ/ /ˈbɛləʊ/ en-us-bellow.ogg

Word forms

bellow bellows beller bellowing bellowed Billow

Etymology

From Middle English belwen, from Old English belgan, bylgan (“to become angry, to swell with rage”), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to sound, roar”), whence also belg (“leather bag”), bellan (“to roar”), blāwan (“to blow”). Cognate with German bellen (“to bark”), Russian бле́ять (bléjatʹ, “baa, bleat”). Compare billow (“wave”), of the same root, also bulge, with related etymology to swelling. Potentially related to bawl, Swedish böl (“bawl”).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.