Noun: billow
| Singular | billow |
| Plural | billows |
Sample Sentences
-
[…] Whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll, / From the world's girdle to the frozen pole; [1782, William Cowper, “Expostulation”, in Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.:]
-
The snow fell hissing in the brine, / And the billows frothed like yeast. [1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, in Ballads and Other Poems:]
-
But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship […] [1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 9:]
-
The banners outflame the blazing morn, / O'er billows of bayonet, sword, and spear. [1864, Frank Moore, Songs of the Soldiers, page 238:]
-
And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart. [1873, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Brook and the Wave”, in Birds of Passage:]
-
1893 August, Rudyard Kipling, "Seal Lullaby", in "The White Seal", National Review.
-
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; / Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
-
Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands? [1922, Clark Ashton Smith, The Caravan:]
Nouns inflected like billow
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-der.
3. Proto-Germanic *belganą
4. Proto-Germanic *bulgijō
5. Old Norse bylgjabor.
6. Middle English *bilwe
7. English billow
8. From Middle English *bilwe, borrowed from Old Norse bylgja, from Proto-Germanic *bulgijō.
9. Cognates include Danish bølge (“wave”); Norwegian Bokmål bølge (“wave”), Norwegian Nynorsk bylgje (“wave”); Swedish bölja (“wave”); German Low German Bulge, Bulg, Bülg (“billow, wave”); German Bulge (“billow, wave”). Compare bellow, bawl. See: Middle English Nouns '
*bilwe', Old Norse Nouns '
bylgja', Danish Nouns '
bølge', Norwegian Bokmål Nouns '
bølge', Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns '
bylgje', Swedish Nouns '
bölja'.
Verbs referencing "billow"
Danish Nouns
bølge, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns
bølgje.