bellow

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English belwen,^[2][3][4][5] and most dictionaries, some of them with a "perhaps", take that as inherited from Old English bylgan (“to bellow”),^{[6][7][8][9][10]} also bylgian.^[3][4] The OED calls the etymology uncertain: the Old English verb is rare, and it may be a parallel formation to the synonymous bellan, the source of bell "to roar", from a Germanic form it gives as Proto-Germanic *balligôjan.^[11] Hoad also leaves the origin uncertain.^[12] Barnhart, the American Heritage Dictionary and the MED bring in another Old English verb, belgan (“to become angry”),^[13][14][2] cognate with Old Norse belgja (“to swell up”), Old High German belgan (“to swell up, be angry”) and Old Saxon belgan (“to become angry”), and related to bellows and belly.^[13] Skeat thought belwen may have arisen from a confusion of these verbs.^[15] Merriam-Webster compares bellan (“to roar”) and belja (“to bellow”),^[3] and Klein adds Dutch bellen and German bellen (“to bark”) and derives the group from Proto-Indo-European *bhel- (“to make a loud noise, sound, roar”),^[4] which Etymonline calls imitative.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To roar like a bull: the OED's first record is in the Old English Martyrology.^[11] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 1000,^[16] and Merriam-Webster to before the 12th century.^[3] Barnhart and Etymonline begin with the Middle English verb, about 1300 and in the early 14th century respectively.^[13][6]

Semantic evolution

The OED remarks that it was properly the bull that bellowed, a cow ordinarily lowing.^[11] In early Middle English the verb also meant to become angry, as in the Ormulum and Laȝamon, which is where the verb belgan shows through,^[2] and people "belewed" in rage about 1300, in the South English Legendary.^[2] The sea does so about 1330,^[2] and Chaucer has it of a loud hollow noise in the Hous of Fame (1384), the OED's first example for thunder, wind and the like.^[11][5] In Gower a man who has turned himself into a bull begins to belwe,^[2] and Chaucer and Gower have it only once each.^[17] It was applied to other animals in the “Boke of St Albans” (1486) and to deer before that.^[11][2] Etymonline and the OED date its use of people to about 1600, the OED citing Hamlet (1603),^[6][11] with the transitive use, uttering words loudly, from 1583;^[11] the sense was usually disparaging or humorous,^[11] and Johnson (1755) called "to vociferate" a word of contempt.^[18] The noun came much later and only from the verb: Etymonline has it from 1763,^[6] and the OED and Merriam-Webster from 1779, of the roar of a bull.^[11][3]

Timeline

• before 1000 – to roar like a bull, in Old English.^[11][16]
• c. 1175 – to become angry, enraged.^[2]
• c. 1300 – of people, to cry out in rage.^[2]
• c. 1330 – of the sea, to roar.^[2] The OED's first record for inanimate things is Chaucer's in 1384.^[11]
• 1486 – of other animals.^[11]
• 1583 – transitive, to utter in a loud deep voice.^[11]
• 1709 – with an object, to give forth with a loud noise.^[11]
• 1779 – noun, the roar of a bull or similar cry.^[11][3] Etymonline dates the noun, a loud deep cry, to 1763.^[6]
• 1818 – noun, of a person, a loud deep cry.^[11]
• 1827 – noun, the roar of cannon or thunder.^[11]
• 1837 – bellow off, to drive off by shouting.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a bull or similar animal, to make a loud, deep, drawn-out cry: The cattle bellowed in the barn all night.^[19][3][11]
2. To shout in a deep voice without restraint, as in anger or pain; to bawl: He bellowed with rage when the door jammed.^[19][3][11]
3. To utter something in a loud deep voice, often with out: The sergeant bellowed an order across the yard.^{[19][3][11][16]}
4. Of thunder, cannon, the wind or the sea, to make a loud hollow roar.^[11][18]

Noun

1. The roar of a bull or a similar cry of another animal.^[19][3][11]
2. A loud deep shout, as of pain or anger: a bellow of laughter.^[19][3][11]
3. The loud deep sound of cannon, thunder or a storm.^[11]

Word family

• bellower
• outbellow

Related words

• bell
• bellows
• belly
• bawl

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
17. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
18. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins