billow

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old Norse bylgja (“a wave, a billow”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the source also of Danish bølge and Swedish bölja;^[2][6] Barnhart speaks more cautiously of a Scandinavian source.^[7] The OED notes that it is not known before 1550 but may have been in dialect use,^[2] and Etymonline that it is not recorded in Middle English.^[3] The Norse word goes back to Proto-Germanic *bulgijō,^[1][3] and is cognate with Old Dutch bolghe, Middle Dutch bulge (“bubble, blister”)^[7] and Middle High German bulge (“a billow; a bag”).^[3][7][4] The OED and Skeat derive it from the verb Proto-Germanic *belganą (“to swell”),^[2][8] which also gave Old English belgan (“to swell with anger”),^[9][8] and Etymonline and Barnhart trace it further to Proto-Indo-European *bhelgh- (“to swell”),^[3][10][7] which Etymonline calls an extended form of *bhel- (“to blow, swell”).^[3] Hoad, Partridge, Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford relate it to belly,^{[5][11][4][6]} but Barnhart finds that link, and one with bellow, unsupported by the sense in Middle English.^[7] Klein takes the literal meaning to be "anything swelling", hence a swelling wave.^[12] Weekley records an earlier spelling “bellow”.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A great swelling wave of the sea: 1552, in Richard Huloet's Abcedarium Anglico Latinum.^[2][7][4]

Semantic evolution

The word often stood simply for a wave, and in poetry for the sea itself.^[2][6][14] A figurative use, chiefly of death as an overwhelming flood, is recorded from 1592,^[2] and by 1667, in Milton's Paradise Lost, it had been extended to a great wave of something else: of flame, air or sound, or a body of people sweeping onward.^[2] A short-lived sense, the swell raised on the ocean by wind or on a river by the tide, is found from 1589 to 1614.^[2] The verb was formed from the noun in the 1590s: 1592 in Merriam-Webster, 1596 in the OED and 1597 in Barnhart.^[4][2][7] It spread from water to anything that surges or undulates in 1628,^[2] and to raising something into folds in 1885.^[2] Johnson (1755) described a billow as "a wave swoln, and hollow".^[15] Today it is also used of anything that bulges or swells out in moving air.^[4][14]

Timeline

• 1552 – a great wave of the sea.^[2][7][4]
• 1589 – the swell on the ocean or on a river (obsolete by 1614).^[2]
• 1592 – figurative, an overwhelming flood, especially of death.^[2]
• 1596 – verb, to rise in billows, to surge.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1592 and Barnhart to 1597.^[4][7]
• early 17th century – the adjective billowy; about 1615 in Barnhart.^[6][7]
• 1628 – verb, figurative and transferred, to swell and roll with a wavy motion.^[2]
• 1667 – a great wave of flame, air or sound, or of moving people, in Milton.^[2]
• 1885 – verb, transitive, to raise into billows or folds.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large swelling wave of water, especially on the open sea: The ferry pitched among grey billows.^[14][4][2]
2. A rolling, surging or swelling mass of something, such as smoke, flame or sound: billows of steam rose from the vent.^[14][4][2]
3. A large wave in the atmosphere, usually on the lee side of a hill.^[14]
4. (poetic) In the plural, the sea itself.^[14][6][2]
5. (obsolete, 1589–1614) The swell of the sea or of a river.^[2][6]

Verb

1. To rise or roll in waves; to surge or undulate: Fog billowed across the harbour.^[4][14][2]
2. To swell or bulge out, as in the wind: Her coat billowed behind her as she ran.^[4][14]
3. To make something rise or swell out in billows or folds.^[14][2]

Word family

• billowiness
• billowy

Related words

• belly
• bellows
• bolster

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.